Nikita Khrushchev's Journey Into America
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€54.99
A01=Lawrence J. Nelson
A01=Matthew Schoenbachler
Author_Lawrence J. Nelson
Author_Matthew Schoenbachler
Category=JPHL
Category=NHD
Category=NHK
Category=NHTW
Cold War
Dwight Eisenhower
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
foreign affairs
Henry Cabot Lodge
ideology
mid 20th century culture
Nikita Khrushchev
religion
Product details
- ISBN 9780700627882
- Weight: 600g
- Dimensions: 162 x 236mm
- Publication Date: 31 May 2019
- Publisher: University Press of Kansas
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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When Nikita Khrushchev toured America in 1959—the first Russian leader ever to set foot in the Western Hemisphere, let alone the United States—the country was enjoying a period of unprecedented prosperity, just as the Cold War and the possibility of thermonuclear annihilation were causing widespread, bone-deep dread throughout the land. This book for the first time fully explores Khrushchev's journey as a reflection of a critical moment in US life. Deeply researched and deftly written, Nikita Khrushchev's Journey into America captures that moment in all its complexity and implications, describing not only the Russian leader's occasionally surreal itinerary (a tantrum at being denied entry into Disneyland, for instance, or a near-riot upon wandering into a grocery store in San Francisco) but also the tenor of the crowds and the country along the way.
Following Khrushchev from his arrival in the nation's capital to the eerily silent greeting of hundreds of thousands of spectators to his tickling of pigs, kissing of babies, and glad-handing of union workers and farm laborers in rural Iowa to his encounter with President Dwight Eisenhower, Nelson and Schoenbachler's work offers glimpses of the clash between a true believer in the Soviet system and the icons of capitalism and visions of prosperity he repeatedly confronted on his trip. At the same time the book shows us the American people of the time coming to terms with who they were even as they confronted the embodiment of everything they believed they weren't: atheistic, socialist, and ideological.
As the narrative unfolds, Khrushchev's visit can be understood as easily the most democratic event of the Cold War, one that laid bare the depth of ideological commitments on both sides of the geopolitical divide as well as the key role of religion in shaping Americans' reactions to the Soviet leader and to the Cold War itself.
Following Khrushchev from his arrival in the nation's capital to the eerily silent greeting of hundreds of thousands of spectators to his tickling of pigs, kissing of babies, and glad-handing of union workers and farm laborers in rural Iowa to his encounter with President Dwight Eisenhower, Nelson and Schoenbachler's work offers glimpses of the clash between a true believer in the Soviet system and the icons of capitalism and visions of prosperity he repeatedly confronted on his trip. At the same time the book shows us the American people of the time coming to terms with who they were even as they confronted the embodiment of everything they believed they weren't: atheistic, socialist, and ideological.
As the narrative unfolds, Khrushchev's visit can be understood as easily the most democratic event of the Cold War, one that laid bare the depth of ideological commitments on both sides of the geopolitical divide as well as the key role of religion in shaping Americans' reactions to the Soviet leader and to the Cold War itself.
Matthew Schoenbachler is a professor of history at the University of North Alabama. He is the author of Murder and Madness: The Myth of the Kentucky Tragedy.
Lawrence J. Nelson was the author of King Cotton’s Advocate: Oscar G. Johnston and the New Deal.
Lawrence J. Nelson was the author of King Cotton’s Advocate: Oscar G. Johnston and the New Deal.
