SOVIET AMERICANA: THE CULTURAL HISTORY OF RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN AMERICANISTS

Book ID/图书代码： 06545018C00003

English Summary/英文概要： In 1991 there were more than 1,000 ’Americanists’ experts in US history and politics working in the Soviet Union. The Americanist community played a vital role in the Cold War, as well as in large part directing the cultural consumption of Soviet society and shaping perceptions of the US. To shed light onto this important, yet under-studied, academic community, Sergei Zhuk here explores the personal histories of prominent Soviet Americanists, considering the myriad cultural influences from John Wayne’s bravado in the film Stagecoach to Miles Davis that shaped their identities, careers and academic interests. Zhuk’s compelling account draws on a wide range of understudied archival documents, periodicals, letters and diaries as well as more than 100 exclusive interviews with prominent Americanists to take the reader from the post-war origins of American studies, via the extremes of the Cold War, thaw and perestroika, to Putin s Russia. Soviet Americana is a comprehensive insight into shifting attitudes towards the US throughout the twentieth century and an essential resource for all Soviet and Cold War historians.

Chinese Summary/中文概要：

Awards/获奖情况：`This extensively and imaginatively researched book - a fresh and fascinating analysis of "soft power" in the academic arena - is one of the most important and original contributions to Cold War studies of the past decade. Sergei Zhuk, once a "Soviet Americanist" and now a leading specialist in late Soviet cultural history, is uniquely qualified to examine the complex careers of Soviet pioneers in the study of US history. Expertly combining traditional archival and print material with extensive interviews, Zhuk convincingly demonstrates argues that American influences in postwar Soviet society were as intellectual as cultural, moving well beyond movies, music and jeans.’ - Denise J. Youngblood, University of Vermont, author of Cinematic Cold War: The American and Soviet Struggle for Hearts and Minds (with Tony Shaw), `In Soviet Americana, Sergei Zhuk removes the veil of secrecy and misconception from one of the most intriguing subjects of the Cold War history, the story of the creation of Soviet knowledge about the Kremlin’s "main adversary," America and Americans. Through the personal stories and academic careers of some of the most prominent Soviets scholars, observers and interpreters of the United States and Canada, Soviet Americana explains what, when and why the Soviet academics knew and did not know about North America, and how the Soviet America experts helped not only to perpetuate but also to end the Cold War. By going beyond Moscow and Russia and including in his inquiry Ukraine, Zhuk provides important insight in the transformation of the American studies in the region after the collapse of the Soviet Union.’ - Serhii Plokhy, Harvard University, author of Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy, `Sergei Zhuk’s extraordinary combination of scholarly and personal knowledge makes Soviet Americana an essential book for anyone who would understand the Cold War and the politics of historical writing that lay behind it.’ - Marcus Rediker, University of Pittsburgh, `At a time when the Russian government’s engagement with the US has become evermore intense, Zhuk offers a stimulating book about how Soviet scholars studied the United States in late twentieth century. Specialists in political science, international affairs and history alike will want to read the book and then consider how Russian studies of the United States have evolved since the collapse of the Soviet Union.’ - Jeffrey Brooks, Johns Hopkins University, `Soviet Americana is a timely, richly documented and highly readable account of a fascinating but hitherto under-researched topic, namely how Soviet academics imagined, and later discovered, "America". This remarkable book will be essential reading not just for Cold War scholars, but for anyone with a serious interest in understanding how Russia views the US today.’ - Graham H. Roberts, Paris Nanterre University, `This book is a fascinating examination of the study of the United States in the Soviet Union and those Soviet specialists that studied America. Eschewing the tired methodology of historiographical analysis, Zhuk instead provides us with a deeply compelling and highly personal perspective on a most timely topic. Soviet Americana is part an American Graffiti-style remembrance of Zhuk’s amazing life, one that has been lived in two disparate yet connected cultural environments, and part Dr.

About the Author/作者介绍： Sergei Zhuk is a professor of Russian and eastern European history at Ball State University and has just finished a visiting professorship at Columbia University. He received his first PhD (in US history) from the Institute of World History in Moscow and his second (in Russian history) from Johns Hopkins University. Zhuk is the author of the acclaimed Rock and Roll in the Rocket City (2010), Popular Culture, Identity and Soviet Youth in Dniepropetrovsk, 1959 1984 (2008) and Russia’s Lost Reformation (2004), as well as numerous books in Russian.

Format:HARDCOVER

Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE

Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE

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