During the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, Washington policymakers aspired to destabilize the Soviet and East European Communist Party regimes by implementing programs of psychological warfare and gradual cultural infiltration. In focusing on American propaganda and cultural infiltration of the Soviet empire in these years, Parting the Curtain emerges as a groundbreaking study of certain aspects of US Cold War diplomacy never before examined.
A practical, reader-friendly guide, with up-to-date information and a good dose of self-respect that will help every woman age 25 and older navigate her sexual journey. Whether you use this book as a reference, an educational tool, or a preventive manual, our aim is that it will answer your questions in a way that embraces female sexuality without medicalizing or sensationalizing it. This book can also be used by mental health and medical professionals, as well as by members of the clergy, for counseling individuals and couples grappling with sexual difficulties.
Recounts the evolution of Alice - middle class girl from the Bronx, classic overachiever, and lifelong submissive - into Mistress Jacqueline, benevolent bitch-goddess, whose beauty and sensitivity have made her the most sought after dominatrix on the West Coast.
During the Cold War, culture became another weapon in America's battle against communism. Part of that effort in cultural diplomacy included a program to arrange the exhibition of hundreds of American paintings overseas. Michael L. Krenn studies the successes, failures, contradictions, and controversies that arose when the U.S. government and the American art world sought to work together to make an international art program a reality between the 1940s and the 1970s. The Department of State, then the United States Information Agency, and eventually the Smithsonian Institution directed this effort, relying heavily on the assistance of major American art organizations, museums, curators, and artists. What the government hoped to accomplish and what the art community had in mind, however, were often at odds. Intense domestic controversies resulted, particularly when the effort involved modern or abstract expressionist art. Ultimately, the exhibition of American art overseas was one of the most controversial Cold War initiatives undertaken by the United States. Krenn's investigation deepens our understanding of the cultural dimensions of America's postwar diplomacy and explores how unexpected elements of the Cold War led to a redefinition of what is, and is not, "American."
The little-explored story of how politics, propaganda, and profits were combined to create the drama, imagery and fantasy that was American film during World War II. 32 black-and-white photographs.
The first book-length survey of cinema's vital role in the Cold War cultural combat between the U.S. and the USSR. Focuses on 10 films--five American and five Soviet, both iconic and lesser-known works--showing that cinema provided a crucial outlet for the global "debate" between democratic and communist ideologies.
From the New York Times bestselling author of When Dimple Met Rishi comes the second installment in a series set an elite boarding school that’s a contemporary spin on fairy tales, this one a delightful, romantic twist on The Frog Prince. Caterina LaValle is determined to show she’s still the queen of St. Rosetta’s Academy. Sure, her crown may be slightly askew after her ex-boyfriend, Alaric, cheated on her, but she’s a LaValle. She’ll find a way to march right back in there, her hands clutching the strings to the whole puppet show. This time, she’s going to be untouchable. Rahul Chopra knows that moment he shared with Caterina LaValle at the winter formal meant something. Surely she feels it, too. He’s a little uncertain how someone like him (socially inept to a point way past “adorkable”) could fit into her world, but he’s loved Caterina for years. He knows they’ll find a way. When Caterina finds out Alaric is taking a supermodel to the upcoming gala, she knows she cannot arrive without the perfect date. But the thought of taking another superficial St. R’s boy exhausts her. The solution? Sweet-but-clueless Rahul Chopra and a mysterious pot of hair gel with the power to alter the wearer into whatever his heart desires. When Rahul tries it, he transforms instantly into RC—debonair, handsome, and charming. But transformation comes with a price: As Rahul enjoys his new social standing, the line between his two personas begins to blur. Will he give up everything, including Caterina, to remain RC? Or will this unlikely pair find their way back to each other?
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 Laura A. Belmonte 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." Selling the American Way 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.
Secret Wars is the first book to systematically analyze the ways powerful states covertly participate in foreign wars, showing a recurring pattern of such behavior stretching from World War I to U.S.-occupied Iraq. Investigating what governments keep secret during wars and why, Austin Carson argues that leaders maintain the secrecy of state involvement as a response to the persistent concern of limiting war. Keeping interventions “backstage” helps control escalation dynamics, insulating leaders from domestic pressures while communicating their interest in keeping a war contained. Carson shows that covert interventions can help control escalation, but they are almost always detected by other major powers. However, the shared value of limiting war can lead adversaries to keep secret the interventions they detect, as when American leaders concealed clashes with Soviet pilots during the Korean War. Escalation concerns can also cause leaders to ignore covert interventions that have become an open secret. From Nazi Germany’s role in the Spanish Civil War to American covert operations during the Vietnam War, Carson presents new insights about some of the most influential conflicts of the twentieth century. Parting the curtain on the secret side of modern war, Secret Wars provides important lessons about how rival state powers collude and compete, and the ways in which they avoid outright military confrontations.
One minute after you die, you will either be elated or terrified-and it will be too late to reroute your travel plans. When you slip behind the parted curtain, your life will not be over. Rather, it will be just beginning-in a place of unimaginable bliss or indescribable gloom. One Minute After You Die opens a window on eternity with a simple and moving explanation of what the Bible teaches about death. Bestselling author Erwin Lutzer urges readers to study what the Bible says on this critical subject, bringing a biblical and pastoral perspective to such issues as: Channeling, reincarnation, and near-death experiences, What heaven will be like The justice of eternal punishment The death of a child Trusting in God's providence Preparing for your own final moment