The Imaginary War: Civil Defense and American Cold War Culture

by Guy Oakes

Book Overview

"Duck and cover" are unforgettable words for a generation of Americans, who listened throughout the Cold War to the unescapable propaganda of civil defense. Yet it would have been impossible to protect Americans from a real nuclear attack, and, as Guy Oakes shows in The Imaginary War, national security officials knew it.
The real purpose of 1950's civil defense programs, Oakes contends, was not to protect Americans from the bomb, but to ingrain...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195090276
• ISBN13: 9780195090277
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 9.6"