The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!: Pageantry and Patriotism in Cold-War America - Hardcover

Fried, Richard M.

3.45

11 ratings by Goodreads

9780195070200: The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!: Pageantry and Patriotism in Cold-War America

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195070208 ISBN 13: 9780195070200

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1998

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This book explores a widely lived yet little remembered facet of America's cultural and political history: the Cold War as experienced at the grassroots level. Here, Fried traces the cresting of modern patriotic observance during World War II and then shows how patriotic and civic activists afterwards labored to recreate a remembered unity and commitment in the tension-filled Cold War era. A variety of national and local entities mounted campaigns "to sell America to the Americans" through "rededication" celebrations like Know Your America Week and Freedom Week. The American Heritage Foundation wheeled out the Freedom Train, which carried seminal documents of the nation's past to railroad depots across the US. Fried revisits the 1950 "Communist invasion" of Mosinee, Wisconsin, when ersatz Stalinists harassed and bullied citizens and the town's eateries served only potato soup and black bread. He also depicts the creation and inauguration of new patriotic events like Loyalty Day and Armed Forces Day.

Meticulously researched, this book recreates a colorful, sometimes comical, and always revealing dimension of our history.

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About the Author:

Richard M. Fried, Professor of History, University of Illinois, Chicago.

Review:

"A wonderful account of civil pagenatry in the McCarthy era, when true patriots observed "Loyalty Day," rode the "Freedom Train," and marched in "Wake Up, America" parades. In the crowded field of Cold War scholarship, The Russians are Coming stands out for its originality, its elegant
writing, and its often hilarious recreation of the grass-roots struggle against communism in the ominous days of Alger Hiss, atomic air raid drills, and the Korean War. A must read for anyone interested in modern American history, and a fun read as well."--David Oshinsky, Rutgers University

"Richard Fried's The Russians are Coming is a significant new approach to our understanding of domestic aspects of the cold war. Drawing on a rich array of original sources, Fried shows how a government-private partnership created public pageants to generate popular support for the conflict
with the Soviet Union. No other work explains so well how prominent officials and business leaders tried to persuade ordinary people to see connections between their daily lives adn the global competition with the Soviet Union."--Robert D. Schulziner, University of Colorado, Boulder

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