New from the University of Massachusetts Press:
Citizenship in Cold War America: The National Security State and the Possibilities of Dissent,
by
Andrea Friedman (Washington University, St. Louis). The Press explains:
In the wake of 9/11, many Americans have deplored the dangers to liberty
posed by a growing surveillance state. In this book, Andrea Friedman
moves beyond the standard security/liberty dichotomy, weaving together
often forgotten episodes of early Cold War history to reveal how the
obsession with national security enabled dissent and fostered new
imaginings of democracy.
The stories told here capture a
wide-ranging debate about the workings of the national security state
and the meaning of American citizenship. Some of the participants in
this debate—women like war bride Ellen Knauff and Pentagon employee
Annie Lee Moss—were able to make their own experiences compelling
examples of the threats posed by the national security regime. Others,
such as Ruth Reynolds and Lolita Lebrón, who advocated an end to
American empire in Puerto Rico, or the psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, who
sought to change the very definition of national security, were less
successful. Together, however, they exposed the gap between democratic
ideals and government policies.
Friedman traverses immigration
law and loyalty boards, popular culture and theoretical treatises, U.S.
court-rooms and Puerto Rican jails, to demonstrate how Cold War
repression made visible in new ways the unevenness and limitations of
American citizenship. Highlighting the ways that race and gender shaped
critiques and defenses of the national security regime, she offers new
insight into the contradictions of Cold War political culture.
Reviewer Laura McEnaney writes:
"This is a very polished, well-argued book that draws on a deep
reservoir of archival materials. . . . The marvelous diversity of the
case studies reinforces the main theme, which is that the Cold War
consensus was not as solid as we have thought—or have been led to
believe by previous scholarship. . . . Friedman’s manuscript is a
rumination on cold war citizenship, but it leads us to reconsider all
moments in American history—well beyond her chronology here—in which
citizenship was contested (and when wasn’t it, frankly?). The episodes
Friedman uncovers are absolutely crucial civics lessons that should
enter the mainstream of our teaching on the postwar/cold war
years."
More information, including the TOC, is available
here.
