Title: Dictators, democracy, and American public culture : envisioning the totalitarian enemy, 1920s-1950s /
Authors: Alpers, Benjamin Leontief, 1965-
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press,
Year: 2003
Subjects: Dictatorship.; Democracy; Mass media United States Influence; Public opinion United States
Abstract: Focusing on portrayals of European dictatorships in US films, magazine and newspaper articles, books, plays, speeches and other texts, this study traces changing American understandings of dictatorship from the late 1920s through to the early years of the Cold War.
Contents: The romance of a dictator : dictatorship in American public culture, 1920s-1935 -- The totalitarian state : modern dictatorship as a new form of government, 1920s-1935 -- The disappearing dictator : declining regard for dictators amid growing fears of dictatorship, 1936-1941 -- The audience itself is the drama : dictatorship and the regimented crowd, 1936-1941 -- Dictator isms and our democracy : the rise of totalitarianism, 1936-1941 -- This is the army : the problem of the military in a democracy, 1941-1945 -- Here is Germany : understanding the Nazi enemy, 1941-1945 -- The battle of Russia : the Russian people, communism, and totalitarianism, 1941-1945 -- A boot stamping on a human face--forever : totalitarianism as nightmare in postwar America.