Innocent Weapons: The Soviet and American Politics of Childhood in the Cold War (The New Cold War History)

In the 1950s and 1960s, images of children appeared everywhere, from movies to milk cartons, their smiling faces used to sell everything, including war. In this provocative book, Margaret Peacock offers an original account of how Soviet and American leaders used emotionally charged images of children in an attempt to create popular support for their policies at home and abroad. Groups on either side of the Iron Curtain pushed visions of endangered, abandoned, and segregated children to indict the enemy's state and its policies. Though the Cold War is often characterized as an ideological divide between the capitalist West and the communist East, Peacock demonstrates a deep symmetry in how Soviet and American propagandists mobilized similar images to similar ends, despite their differences. Based on extensive research spanning fourteen archives and three countries, Peacock tells a new story of the Cold War, seeing the conflict not simply as a divide between East and West, but as a struggle between the producers of culture and their target audiences. MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict MuPDF error: syntax error: invalid key in dict Cover 1 Contents 8 Introduction 14 I. BUILDING AN IMAGE, BUILDING A CONSENSUS 28 1. The Contained Child on the Cusp of a New Era 30 2. The “Other” Child 55 3. Victims, Hooligans, and the Importance of Threat 84 4. Mobilized Childhood Responds to the Threat 107 II. REVISING AN IDEAL 134 5. Soviet Childhood in Film during the Thaw 136 6. American Childhood and the Bomb 173 7. Vietnam and the Fall of an Image 206 Conclusion 228 Notes 240 Bibliography 268 Acknowledgments 286 Index 288 A 288 B 289 C 289 D 291 E 291 F 292 G 292 H 292 I 293 J 293 K 293 L 294 M 294 N 295 O 295 P 295 R 296 S 296 T 297 U 298 V 298 W 298 Y 299 Z 299 Introduction -- Part I. Building An Image, Building A Consensus -- The Contained Child On The Cusp Of A New Era -- The Other Child -- Victims, Hooligans, And The Importance Of Threat -- Mobilized Childhood Responds To The Threat -- Part Ii. Revising An Ideal : The Collapse Of An Image, The Collapse Of Consensus -- Soviet Childhood In Film During The Thaw -- American Childhood And The Bomb -- Vietnam And The Fall Of An Image -- Conclusion. Margaret Peacock. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. In the 1950s and 1960s, images of children appeared everywhere, from movies to milk cartons, their smiling faces used to sell everything, including war. In this provocative book, Margaret E. Peacock offers an original account of how Soviet and American leaders used emotionally charged images of children in an attempt to create popular support for their policies at home and abroad.