De-Centering Cold War History: Local and Global Change

Description

De-Centering Cold War History challenges the Cold War master narratives that focus on super-power politics by shifting our analytical perspective to include local-level experiences and regional initiatives that were crucial to the making of a Cold War world. Cold War histories are often told as stories of national leaders, state policies and the global confrontation that pitted a Communist Eastern Bloc against a Capitalist West. Taking a new analytical approach this book reveals unexpected complexities in the historical trajectory of the Cold War. Contributions from an international group of scholars take a fresh look at historical agency in different places across the world, including Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. This collaborative effort shapes a street-level history of the global Cold War era, one that uses the analysis of the 'local' to rethink and reframe the wider picture of the 'global', connecting the political negotiations of individuals and communities at the intersection of places and of meeting points between 'ordinary' people and political elites to the Cold War at large. Essential reading for all students of Cold War history. Cover......Page 1 De-Centering Cold War History: Local and Global Change......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Contents......Page 6 Figures......Page 8 Contributors......Page 9 Acknowledgments......Page 12 Introduction: De-centering Cold War history......Page 14 Part I Cold War activisms: Crossing borders and building bridges......Page 26 1 Thermonuclear weapons and tuna: Testing, protest, and knowledge in Japan......Page 28 2 The Cold War, Indonesian women and the global anti-imperialist movement, 1946–65......Page 44 3 Fighting fascism and forging new political activism: The Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) in the Cold War......Page 65 Part II Separating enemies from friends: communism, anti-communism, and the construction of Cold War realities......Page 86 4 Cold War happiness: Singing pioneers, internal enemies and Hungarian life under Stalinism......Page 88 5 New men of power: Jack Tenney, Ronald Reagan, and postwar labor anticommunism......Page 112 6 Female terrorists and vigilant citizens Gender, citizenship and Cold War direct-democracy......Page 136 Part III Rethinking opposition and conformity......Page 158 7 Making sense of “China” during the Cold War: Global Maoism and Asian studies......Page 160 8 Anti-Communist entrepreneurs and the origins of the cultural Cold War in Latin America......Page 180 9 A “new man” for Africa?: Some particularities of the Marxist Homem Novo within Angolan cultural policy......Page 200 10 The Cold War and Orange County......Page 220 Index......Page 240