Selling the American way
Subtitle: national identity, propaganda, and the Cold War, 1945/1959
By: Laura A. Belmonte.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Philadelphia
Language: eng
Number of pages: 255
ISBN-13: 9780812240825
Subjects: Propaganda, American -- History -- 20th century; Nationalism -- United States -- History -- 20th century; Cold War; United States -- Foreign relations -- 1945-1953; United States -- Foreign relations -- 1953-1961
Description: In 1955, the United States Information Agency published a lavishly illustrated booklet called "My America." Assembled ostensibly to document "the basic elements of a free dynamic society," the booklet emphasized cultural diversity, political freedom, and social mobility and made no mention of McCarthyism or the Cold War. Though hyperbolic, "My America" was, as this author shows, merely one of hundreds of pamphlets from this era written and distributed in an organized attempt to forge a collective defense of the "American way of life." This book examines the context, content, and reception of U.S. propaganda during the early Cold War. Determined to protect democratic capitalism and undercut communism, U.S. information experts defined the national interest not only in geopolitical, economic, and military terms. Through radio shows, films, and publications, they also propagated a carefully constructed cultural narrative of freedom, progress, and abundance as a means of protecting national security. Not simply a one-way look at propaganda as it is produced, the book is a subtle investigation of how U.S. propaganda was received abroad and at home and how criticism of it by Congress and successive presidential administrations contributed to its modification.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.