Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The Cold War was a period of great political tensions and exceptional creativity touching every aspect of life, from everyday products to the highest arenas of human achievement in science and culture. Cold War Modern is an ambitious review of the geography of Cold War modernity, including works from the Socialist Bloc and western Europe, the United States, Cuba and Japan. Essays on subjects as diverse as Cold War strategy, domesticity and hi-tech design developments are illustrated with remarkable images by internationally renowned artists and designers from Picasso to Kubrick, alongside the forgotten figures of the Cold War era.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This is an important book whose time has come. The Victoria and Albert Museum's exhibition Cold War Modern coincided with the 40th anniversary of 1968 and its many cultural turning points. In that year, perhaps more than any other, the paradoxes of modernism became clear. This catalogue probes the ways that visual and material culture embodied and gave voice to a paradoxical modernism situated between utopian and catastrophic visions, between consumer and communal lifestyles. As an exhibition, this follows effectively the V&A's epic Modernism: Designing a New World 1914-1939 and the accompanying catalogue (ed. by C. Wilk, CH, Jan'07, 44-2514), while leaving room for a similarly expansive and critical reassessment of postmodern design. This volume eschews more familiar Pop Art-inspired visions of the 1960s for those of Dr. Strangelove and Buckminster Fuller. The arts of propaganda here include the design of kitchens and international exhibitions as well as familiar poster designs. As a catalogue, this superbly researched, well-illustrated volume promises to inspire new thinking about a critical epoch in the history of design and the history of culture. It will be ideal for researchers in American studies, architecture, art history, cultural studies, and design, and for historians of political thought. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. J. E. Housefield UC Davis