Making a homefront without a battlefront
The manufacturing of domestic enemies in the early Cold War culture
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6187776 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jean-Paul Gabilliet (0009-0005-6603-6166), Jean‐paul Gabilliet (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Publication date | 2012-03-29 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Journal of American Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1991-9336 • E-ISSN: 1991-9336 |
| Publisher | OpenEdition (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.4000/ejas.9549 |
| OpenAlex | W2042024071 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 1 |
Although the Cold War was an undeclared conflict without actual battlefront, one of its earliest characteristics was the emergence in the United States of a homefront-based “war culture” targetting domestic enemies. 1947 witnessed the rise in news media of anxieties over alleged threats to domestic stability: in the first few months of the year, a Crime Scare reactivating pre-war concerns about the Mob and, in the summer, the first reported UFO sightings. In both cases the media and public responses to these events evidenced a collective interest triggered by news stories that singled out exaggerated or fictitious domestic threats and produced scapegoats (ethnic mobsters and alleged extra-terrestrial visitors) that implicitly confirmed the Americans’ perception of their country as an embattled homefront
Cold war · Criminology · Economic history · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Sociology · European history and politics · French Historical and Cultural Studies · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact · History · Law
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |