Over the past three decades, a “new Cold War history” movement has flourished, fed by the declassification of Western records and the opening of archives in the former Soviet bloc. This has been especially valuable for diplomatic historians, but cultural historians have also benefited from it, learning more about government agencies’ role in supporting independent groups like the Congress for Cultural Freedom and the National Student Association, the thinking behind tours by foreign jazz groups in Warsaw Pact countries, and Communist publishers’ engagement in international book fairs.
Although these new studies have broadened our understanding of how governments involved themselves, openly or covertly, in the cultural sphere, another kind of Cold War cultural history—explorations of the cultural atmosphere created by Cold War events, tensions, and anxieties—has not undergone the same kind of expansion. The classic studies of the era (including such titles as Elaine Tyler May's Homeward Bound, Stephen...