Cold War on the Home Front
The Soft Power of Midcentury Design
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5704111 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ron Robin (New York University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 98 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 249-249 |
| Publication date | 2011-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jahist/jar172 |
| OpenAlex | W1973509207 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
Greg Castillo's admirable study of technopolitics during the Cold War departs from conventional inquests of science and technology within the military industrial complex. Beyond the preening of what Mary Kaldor once dubbed “the baroque arsenal” (in her 1981 book of the same name), Castillo discovers a treasure trove of superpower duels over domesticized technology. Castillo argues for a greater appreciation of the “Trojan home” (p. xxii), the model domicile that formed the backbone of representations of the United States in international fairs held behind the Iron Curtain. While cautiously avoiding overemphasis of the role of soft power in the self-immolation the Soviet system, Castillo persuasively documents the role of domesticized consumerism in hastening the implosion of the Eastern bloc. Castillo posits the high drama of the 1959 Richard M. Nixon–Nikita Khrushchev kitchen debate as the culmination of rather than the point of departure for successful soft-power campaigns to undermine the Soviet system. The “splitnik”—the model suburban tract home that provided the stage for the Nixon-Khrushchev debate—was the tail end of a lineage of similar displays of enticing Western consumerist ways. Castillo argues that Khrushchev's empty promises to beat the West at its own game occurred after almost a decade of unanswered U.S. consumer triumphs in the Eastern bloc, where personal liberty was masterfully conflated with private consumption
Archaeology · Art history · Consumerism · Dynamite · Hard power · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Soft power · Superpower · Art, Politics, and Modernism · History · Law
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,89 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2022 (6) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 8 |