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Randall Stephens The November 24, 1954 episode of Longines Chronoscope featured Henry Steele Commager (video embedded here).  That was not unusual for the news and views program , which regularly featured heads of state, intellectuals, novelists, and other notables.  But the subject of the discussion is particularly interesting all these years later.  Maybe that's especially poignant because Commager was one of America's foremost historians at that time. Here he weighs in on American identity, the pressures of conformity, the post-war economic boom, and freedom of expression.   This was filmed in the wake of the Korean War, the hydrogen bomb test on Bikini Atoll, and not long after the historic Brown vs. Topeka Supreme Court decision.  Red Scare paranoia remained strong. The coming month of December would see the US Senate reprimand Joseph McCarthy, by a vote of 67–22, for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute." Here are some...

Randall Stephens How did Stalin control the media during World War II?  And how did that level of control shape the direction of the war and compare to similar efforts in Germany?   Karel C. Berkhoff explores these and other questions in his June 2013 Historically Speaking essay, "Motherland In Danger: How Stalin Micromanaged The Media During The War With Nazi Germany and Hurt Mobilization Efforts." (See the full piece at Project Muse .) Asks Berkhoff: "If you lived, say, in Novosibirsk or Tashkent during World War II, what were you told? What did Soviet newspapers and radio tell Soviet civilians, and what did it all mean for the outcome of the war?"  Throughout he notes that Stalin's extensive wartime propaganda stood out when compared to contemporaries.  Here's a brief excerpt: A close look reveals that during the war with Nazi Germany, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War, Soviet propaganda was much more centralized than in Nazi Germany. Joseph...

Randall Stephens While I'm at an American Studies conference in Sweden, the blog will be taking a short break.  In the meantime, have a look at this two past posts that deal with Memorial Day: Heather Cox Richardson, "A Thank You to Our Troops—All of Them—on this Memorial Day," May 30, 2011 Memorial Day came out of the Decoration Days held after the Civil War. This seems like a logical thing for me, a scholar of nineteenth century America, to write about today. Instead, though, I’d like to talk about a group of soldiers that often gets forgotten when we remember our troops. I mean the WACs, the more than 150,000 women who served in the U.S. Army during World War II. >>> Randall Stephens, "The History of Memorial Day and the National World War One Museum, Kansas City," May 23, 2009 As Americans cram their faces with hot dogs and swill cheap beer, many will also reflect on the heroic efforts of countless men and women who have served their country over...