The Cold War was not only about the imperial ambitions of the super powers, their military strategies, and antagonistic ideologies. It was also about conflicting worldviews and their correlates in the daily life of the societies involved. The term "Cold War Culture" is often used in a broad sense to describe media influences, social practices, and symbolic representations as they shape, and are shaped by, international relations. Yet, it remains in question whether - or to what extent - the Cold War Culture model can be applied to European societies, both in the East and the West. While every...

Censorship and its counterpart - the 'underground' production and distribution of printed texts and images - have existed ever since a 'public sphere' came into being. This book approaches the phenomenon of underground publishing by covering various cases from the Tsarist Empire, the Soviet Union, Central Europe, South America, and China. From a global perspective, the well-known practice of samizdat - under Communist rule, a key form of dissident activity in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader - may be understood as part...