Britain’s Cold War: Culture, Modernity and the Soviet Threat

Description

The cultural history of the Cold War has been characterized as an explosion of fear and paranoia, based on very little actual intelligence. Both the US and Soviet Cover Half-title Title Copyright Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction Britain and the Cold War Apocalypticism Glimpsing and Encountering the Eastern European Other Structure of the Book 1. Between West and East: Fellow-Travellers and British Culture in the Early Cold War The ‘Red Dean’ and Early Cold War Culture The World Peace Congress Murder in Moscow and Cold War Allies and Enemies Conclusion 2. ‘No Defence Against the H-bomb’: British Society and H-bomb Consciousness in 1954 The Emergence of the H-bomb in British Media The Coventry Civil Defence Scandal The Coventry Civil Defence Exercise Conclusion 3. ‘The Iron Curtain is Melting Away’: Encounters with ‘The Thaw’ A Camera in Russia Sporting Engagements Khrushchev in Britain Conclusion The Ponomareva Affair 4. ‘When are the British Coming to Help Us?’: British Responses to the Soviet Invasion of Budapest, 1956 The Crumbling of the Soviet Empire? The Repression Re-Stalinisation Conclusion 5. ‘Russia Wins Space Race’: The British Press and the Launch of Sputnik, October 1957 The Soviet Sputnik Science Fiction Becomes Science Fact The First Earthling in Orbit The Dog’s Death Conclusion 6. The Thriller and the Cold War The Cold War as a Game Cold War Insecurity An Agent Without Agency Conclusion 7. Nuclear Anxieties and Popular Culture Nuclear Anxieties and Protest Movements Fiction and Mutually Assured Destruction Criticising the Cold War Conclusion 8. ‘The Greatest Story of Our Lifetime’: The Successes and the Limitations of Soviet Ideology Modernity and Declinist Narratives Yuri Gagarin in Britain The Building of the Berlin Wall Damn You England Conclusion 9. Viewing the Soviet Union at the End of Khrushchev’s Rule The ‘Matrix of Us and Them’ in The Ashes of Loda After the Coup Conclusion Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index