We Begin Bombing in Five Minutes: Late Cold War Culture in the Age of Reagan
In the moments before his weekly radio address hit the airwaves in 1984, Ronald Reagan made an off-the-record joke: "I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." As reports of the stunt leaked to the press, many Americans did not find themselves laughing along with the president. Long a fervent warrior against what he termed the "Evil Empire," by the mid-1980s, Reagan confronted growing domestic opposition to his revival of the Cold War. While numerous histories of the era have glorified the "Decade of Greed," historian Andrew Hunt instead explores the period's robust political and cultural dissent.

We Begin Bombing in Five Minutes focuses on a striking array of protest movements that took up issues such as the nuclear arms race, U.S. intervention in Central America, and American investments in South Africa. Hunt's new history of the eighties investigates how film, television, and other facets of popular culture critiqued Washington's Cold War policies and reveals that activists and cultural rebels alike posed a more meaningful challenge to the Cold War's excesses than their predecessors in the McCarthy era.
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We Begin Bombing in Five Minutes: Late Cold War Culture in the Age of Reagan
In the moments before his weekly radio address hit the airwaves in 1984, Ronald Reagan made an off-the-record joke: "I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." As reports of the stunt leaked to the press, many Americans did not find themselves laughing along with the president. Long a fervent warrior against what he termed the "Evil Empire," by the mid-1980s, Reagan confronted growing domestic opposition to his revival of the Cold War. While numerous histories of the era have glorified the "Decade of Greed," historian Andrew Hunt instead explores the period's robust political and cultural dissent.

We Begin Bombing in Five Minutes focuses on a striking array of protest movements that took up issues such as the nuclear arms race, U.S. intervention in Central America, and American investments in South Africa. Hunt's new history of the eighties investigates how film, television, and other facets of popular culture critiqued Washington's Cold War policies and reveals that activists and cultural rebels alike posed a more meaningful challenge to the Cold War's excesses than their predecessors in the McCarthy era.
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We Begin Bombing in Five Minutes: Late Cold War Culture in the Age of Reagan

We Begin Bombing in Five Minutes: Late Cold War Culture in the Age of Reagan

by Andrew Hunt
We Begin Bombing in Five Minutes: Late Cold War Culture in the Age of Reagan

We Begin Bombing in Five Minutes: Late Cold War Culture in the Age of Reagan

by Andrew Hunt

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Overview

In the moments before his weekly radio address hit the airwaves in 1984, Ronald Reagan made an off-the-record joke: "I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." As reports of the stunt leaked to the press, many Americans did not find themselves laughing along with the president. Long a fervent warrior against what he termed the "Evil Empire," by the mid-1980s, Reagan confronted growing domestic opposition to his revival of the Cold War. While numerous histories of the era have glorified the "Decade of Greed," historian Andrew Hunt instead explores the period's robust political and cultural dissent.

We Begin Bombing in Five Minutes focuses on a striking array of protest movements that took up issues such as the nuclear arms race, U.S. intervention in Central America, and American investments in South Africa. Hunt's new history of the eighties investigates how film, television, and other facets of popular culture critiqued Washington's Cold War policies and reveals that activists and cultural rebels alike posed a more meaningful challenge to the Cold War's excesses than their predecessors in the McCarthy era.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781625345769
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
Publication date: 08/27/2021
Series: Culture and Politics in the Cold War and Beyond
Pages: 232
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

ANDREW HUNT is professor of history at the University of Waterloo and coauthor of Social History of the United States: The 1980s.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Setting the Stage 6

Chapter 2 Nostalgia Wars 28

Chapter 3 In the Shadow of Vietnam 47

Chapter 4 Seeing Reds 70

Chapter 5 No Nukes 94

Chapter 6 The Wars for Central America 121

Chapter 7 The End of the Line 145

Conclusion 163

Notes 167

Index 205

Photo gallery follows page 120.

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