Mills, David (Author)
Most communists, as any plains state patriot would have told you in the 1950s, lived in Los Angeles or New York City, not Minot, North Dakota. The Cold War as it played out across the Great Plains was not the Cold War of the American cities and coasts. Nor was it tempered much by midwestern isolationism, as common wisdom has it. In this book, David W. Mills offers an enlightening look at what most of the heartland was up to while America was united in its war on Reds. Cold War in a Cold Land adopts a regional perspective to develop a new understanding of a critical chapter in the nation’s history. Marx himself had no hope that landholding farmers would rise up as communist revolutionaries. So it should come as no surprise that in places like South Dakota, where 70 percent of the population owned land and worked for themselves, people didn’t take the threat of internal subversion very seriously. Mills plumbs the historical record to show how residents of the plains states—while deeply patriotic and supportive of the nation’s foreign policy—responded less than enthusiastically to national anticommunist programs. Only South Dakota, for example, adopted a loyalty oath, and it was fervently opposed throughout the state. Only Montana, prodded by one state legislator, formed an investigation committee—one that never investigated anyone and was quickly disbanded. Plains state people were, however, “highly churched” and enthusiastically embraced federal attempts to use religion as a bulwark against atheistic communist ideology. Even more enthusiastic was the Great Plains response to the military buildup that accompanied Cold War politics, as the construction of airbases and missile fields brought untold economic benefits to the region. A much-needed, nuanced account of how average citizens in middle America experienced Cold War politics and policies, Cold War in a Cold Land is a significant addition to the history of both the Cold War and the Great Plains.
...MoreReview Steven J. Bucklin (2016) Review of "Cold War in a Cold Land: Fighting Communism on the Northern Plains". Agricultural History (pp. 159-160).
Article
Irina Podgorny;
(2020)
Florentino Ameghino entre Luján et Moscou (1911-1954)
(/isis/citation/CBB074233979/)
Book
Timothy Barney;
(2015)
Mapping the Cold War: Cartography and the Framing of America's International Power
(/isis/citation/CBB005380302/)
Book
Heefner, Gretchen;
(2012)
The Missile Next Door: The Minuteman in the American Heartland
(/isis/citation/CBB001550030/)
Article
Emily Baum;
(2021)
Acupuncture Anesthesia on American Bodies: Communism, Race, and the Cold War in the Making of “Legitimate” Medical Science
(/isis/citation/CBB456797600/)
Thesis
Rohde, Joy Elizabeth;
(2007)
“The Social Scientists' War”: Expertise in a Cold War Nation
(/isis/citation/CBB001560853/)
Article
Wang, Zuoyue;
(2010)
Transnational Science during the Cold War: The Case of Chinese/American Scientists
(/isis/citation/CBB000954447/)
Article
Amy Wiese Forbes;
Amanda Smithers;
(2018)
Combatting the ‘Communistic-Mulatto Inspired Movement to Fuse the Two Ethnic Groups’: The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, Sickled Cells, and Segregationists’ Science in the Atomic Age
(/isis/citation/CBB004012193/)
Book
Dan Flores;
(2017)
American Serengeti: The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains
(/isis/citation/CBB340804889/)
Article
Vargha, Dora;
(2014)
Between East and West: Polio Vaccination across the Iron Curtain in Cold War Hungary
(/isis/citation/CBB001420184/)
Article
Marc andre Matten;
(September 2018)
Coping with Invisible Threats: Nuclear Radiation and Science Dissemination in Maoist China
(/isis/citation/CBB085829669/)
Article
Thomas William Shillam;
(2020)
Shattering the ‘looking-glass world’: the Congress for Cultural Freedom in South Asia, 1951–55
(/isis/citation/CBB779071243/)
Article
Katrin Schreiter;
Davide Ravasi;
(Autumn 2018)
Institutional Pressures and Organizational Identity: The Case of Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau in the GDR and Beyond, 1945–1996
(/isis/citation/CBB058573313/)
Book
Price, David H.;
(2004)
Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI's Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists
(/isis/citation/CBB000470728/)
Article
Willem Pieter Theodoor (Wim) De Jong;
(2020)
Cold War Social Science in Action: The Ford Foundation and Liberal Adult Education in the United States (1945-60)
(/isis/citation/CBB540266629/)
Article
Margaret K. Gnoinska;
(2018)
Promoting the ‘China Way’ of communism in Poland and beyond during the Sino-Soviet Split: The case of Kazimierz Mijal
(/isis/citation/CBB841446460/)
Article
Köhler, Piotr;
(2011)
Lysenko Affair and Polish Botany
(/isis/citation/CBB001034560/)
Chapter
Giulia Bassi;
(2020)
«Solo con il socialismo comincia un’epoca nuova nella scienza». Mito e ambivalenze del PCI sul discorso scientifico sovietico (1949-1969)
(/isis/citation/CBB889569703/)
Book
Paul Betts;
Stephen A. Smith;
(2016)
Science, Religion and Communism in Cold War Europe
(/isis/citation/CBB871767556/)
Article
Sören Urbansky;
Max Trecker;
(2018)
Kremlinology revisited: The nuances of reporting on China in the Eastern bloc press
(/isis/citation/CBB462727540/)
Book
Norman M. Naimark;
(2019)
Stalin and the fate of Europe: The post-war struggle for sovereignty
(/isis/citation/CBB253001907/)
Be the first to comment!