Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Blake Scott Ball
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Comic Strip ◽  
Social Commentary ◽  
Popular Discourse ◽  
Social Events ◽  
Political Spectrum

Many critics have assumed that Peanuts was popular in Cold War America because it was apolitical and inoffensive, yet the opposite is actually true. This introduction reviews how Charles Schulz’s comic strip regularly engaged in political and social commentary. Even more, thousands of fans wrote regular letters to discuss, critique, and debate the messages they read in Peanuts each day. For nearly fifty years, Peanuts was an important part of popular discourse around political and social events. Schulz’s unique wishy-washy style allowed fans from across the American political spectrum to see their values, concerns, and hopes reflected in this enduring comic strip.

Punk Tiermondisme, Punk Tribalism, and the Late Cold War Roots of Antiglobalization

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond A. Patton
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
The World ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Market Success

This chapter explores the divergent reactions of punk scenes around the world to the changing forces of neoconservative/neoliberal politics and globalization. Some scenes embraced a new punk variant of the previous generation’s tiermondisme (“third worldism”), creating new alliances across the three worlds of the late Cold War era, along with new collaborations with reggae and hip-hop artists. Others, however, turned inward to an insular punk tribalism. Both were skeptical of the emerging global neoliberal order and often also participated in the politically ambiguous antiglobalization rallies that emerged in the 1980s and continued into the 1990s. By the mid-1980s, punk scenes around the world found themselves dividing along the lines of an emergent political spectrum, into warring factions of xenophobic reactionary skinheads and globally minded progressive punks. This divide was intensified by the overlying tension between bands that found market success and those that vehemently rejected any sign of it.

Interpreting Right-Wing or Reactionary Neo-Populism: A Critique

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Formisano
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Opportunity ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The Cold War

During the 1980s and 1990s in countries across the globe, new populist protest movements and radical political organizations emerged to challenge traditional parties, ruling elites, and professional politicians, and even long-standing social norms. The revolts against politics-as-usual have arisen from many kinds of social groupings and from diverse points on the political spectrum. Through the 1980s, in Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and North America, populist discontent erupted intermittently. But the end of the Cold War, particularly in Europe, unleashed a torrent of popular movements and political parties opposed to what the discontented perceived as the corruption and deceitfulness of the political classes and their corporate patrons. Some protest movements promoted more democracy, pluralism, and economic opportunity; some expressed intolerance, bigotry, and xenophobic nationalism.

Cultural Context of Apollo Culture

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Westwood ◽  
Beth Laura O’Leary ◽  
Milford Wayne Donaldson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Apollo Program ◽  
International Geophysical Year ◽  
Social Events ◽  
Space Race ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
International Geophysical

This chapter expands on the notion of Apollo Culture in greater detail, beginning with an historic context of the Cold War era. It takes a look at the Sputnik and Vanguard launches during the IGY (International Geophysical Year) Space Race, and explains how these political and social events of the mid-20th century set the stage for the rise and fall of the Apollo program- which required a combination of engineering, marketing, and scientific efforts by the federal government.

“I Am Afraid Americans Cannot Understand”: The Congress for Cultural Freedom in France and Italy, 1950–1957

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-124
Author(s):  
Andrea Scionti
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
International Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
Congress For Cultural Freedom ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Cultural Freedom ◽  
The U.S

This article examines the nature and significance of the activities carried out in France and Italy by the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), an international organization that was secretly funded by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to support anti-Communist intellectuals, including those on the left end of the political spectrum. These two West European countries, with their large and politically influential Communist parties, were central to the CCF's work in Europe. The organization's task was complicated by domestic concerns and traditions that forced local intellectuals to stress their autonomy from the CCF International Secretariat and its U.S. patrons. The article uses the cultural Cold War and the competing interpretations of anti-Communism and cultural freedom within the CCF as a lens to explore the limits of U.S. influence and persuasion among the intellectual classes of Europe. By repeatedly asserting their independence and agency, the French and Italian members of the CCF helped redefine the character and limits of U.S. cultural diplomacy.

‘Yeh azaadi jhooti hai!’: The shaping of the opposition in the first year of the Congress raj

2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 1358-1388 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHALINI SHARMA
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The Political ◽  
First Year ◽  
Class Politics ◽  
National Rule ◽  
Indian State ◽  
National Congress ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Political Weapon ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractWithin a year of Indian independence, the Communist Party of India declared independence to be a false dawn and the whole Socialist bloc within the ruling Indian National Congress cut its ties with the national government. The speed with which the left disengaged from what had been a patriotic alliance under colonialism surprised many at the time and has perplexed historians ever since. Some have looked to the wider context of the Cold War to explain the onset of dissent within the Indian left. This paper points instead to the neglected domestic context, examining the lines of inclusion and exclusion that were drawn up in the process of the making of the new Indian constitution. Once in power, Congress leaders recalibrated their relationship with their former friends at the radical end of the political spectrum. Despite some of the well-known differences among leading Congress personalities, they spoke as one on industrial labour and the illegitimacy of strikes as a political weapon in the first year of national rule and declared advocates of class politics to be enemies of the Indian state. Congress thus attempted to sideline the Socialists and Communists and brand them as unacceptable in the new regime. This paper focuses on this first year of independence, emphasizing how rapidly the limits of Indian democracy were set in place.

Charlie Brown's America

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Blake Scott Ball
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
Comic Strip ◽  
Nuclear Testing ◽  
Social Turmoil

Charles Schulz’s Peanuts was an unexpectedly political comic strip. While many people have come to identify Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Peppermint Patty, and Snoopy with childhood and innocence, Peanuts regularly commented on the politics and social turmoil of Cold War America. From nuclear testing to the civil rights movement, from the Vietnam War to the feminist revolution, Peanuts was an unlikely medium for Americans of all stripes to debate the hopes and fears of the era. Charlie Brown’s America is the story of how the creation of one Midwestern man became one of the most influential pop-culture properties of the twentieth century and what its popularity reveals about the character of the United States.

The Good State: in praise of ‘classical’ internationalism

2005 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER LAWLER
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Politics ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Good State ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Cold War

The end of the Cold War has seen Western internationalism migrate from the margins to the centre of International Relations theory and practice. As a consequence the modest ambitions of what we might now call ‘classical internationalism’ have come under challenge from more thoroughly cosmopolitan varieties from both the right and left of the mainstream Western political spectrum whose commonalities, moreover, are arguably becoming as prominent as their differences. This article attempts to recover the classical internationalist project and, more specifically, the understanding of statehood that underpins it. Some observations on the distinctions and tensions between varieties of contemporary internationalist and cosmopolitan thinking about international politics are followed by a critique of a pervasive scholarly disinterest in the varieties of Western internationalist states. These two exercises form the backdrop to advocacy of the idea of ‘the Good State’ as a response to dominant forms of contemporary Western cosmopolitanism and their critics.

Epilogue

2021 ◽  
pp. 184-196
Author(s):  
Blake Scott Ball
Keyword(s):  
Pop Culture ◽  
First Century ◽  
Comic Strip ◽  
Social Commentary ◽  
The World ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Twenty First Century

Peanuts persists to this day as an important shorthand in political and social commentary. The legacy Schulz established in his comic strip has been caught and carried on by his fans. Despite his passing in 2000, Peanuts is one of the highest grossing cartoon properties in the world. As Peanuts’ relationship with insurer MetLife demonstrates, however, the twenty-first century has presented new challenges to the continued relevance of Peanuts in American pop culture. While some were unsure that the characters could survive without Schulz, Peanuts has been remarkably resilient and enjoyed a resurgence in film, television, and publication in recent years.

The Shape of Water and the Cold War Revisited

Cold War II ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 129-139
Author(s):  
Cyndy Hendershot
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
First Century ◽  
Social Commentary ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Hays Code

The chapter analyzes Guillermo Del Toro’s Oscar-winning film and its relation to Cold War nostalgia. It claims that The Shape of Water reimagines Cold War America while paying homage to classic tropes of the 1950s. To specify, the film reimagines the classic horror/SF film for a twenty-first-century audience. While the same pathos for the creature exists as in the original that inspired it–The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)–Del Toro adds pointed social commentary that would not have been permitted in Hays Code America. The chapter explores how The Shape of Water pays tribute to The Creature from The Black Lagoon while serving as a statement and an update for twenty-first-century filmgoers.

How Policy Fields Are Born: The Rise of Democratic Security in Argentina

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillermina Seri ◽  
Mary Rose Kubal
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Security Measures ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Authoritarian Government ◽  
Policy Fields ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Democratic Life ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractThis essay maps the transformation of security from a symbol of authoritarian government under the Cold War paradigm of National Security into a public good and a policy field acknowledged as legitimate and democratic by politicians and policy experts. Using present-day Argentina as an example, we show how security ideas gain dominance across the political spectrum, displacing and subordinating democratic politics conceived in terms of rights. As institutions increasingly accept security measures and pre-emptive risk management, a securitising discourse – despite its claims to advocate for the ‘citizen’ – trumps governance and the rule of law. Appealing to citizens’ concerns and rights, the new forms of securitisation may yet undermine democratic life.

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