David W. Mills. Cold War in a Cold Land

Cold War scholarship characteristically addresses big picture topics: international relations, national/international policies, and political or popular figures who sought to mitigate, aggravate, or manipulate tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. David W. Mills narrows the focus by arguing that American attitudes toward the Cold War differed according to regionally historic patterns of immigration, culture, economics, and relationship with the federal government. He draws attention to the Northern Great Plains region (Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota) during the 1940s–1960s, and examines the response of this region to national initiatives for anticommunist programs and nuclear threats at state and local levels, challenging the idea of a ubiquitous, fearful nation. Cold War in a Cold Land: Fighting Communism on the Northern Plains is comprised of nine chronologically arranged chapters within three thematic sections. The first section delves into national programs to eradicate communist organizations and stifle individual interest in communism, to encourage both religious and patriotic engagement, and to indelibly intertwine religious fervor and patriotism. Mills shows how the Northern Plains history of agricultural and mining radicalism, albeit diminished after World War I, complicated national initiatives. While some individuals, tagged as communists, still suffered censure and job loss as others did elsewhere in the country, Northern Plains states rejected the loyalty oaths that were implemented in many other states, citing concerns that the oaths would jeopardize civil liberties for all their citizens.

Communism · Economic history · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Sociology · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies