Review: Cold War on the Home Front: The Soft Power of Midcentury Design by Greg Castillo

Abstract

Book Review| September 01 2011 Review: Cold War on the Home Front: The Soft Power of Midcentury Design by Greg Castillo Greg Castillo. Cold War on the Home Front: The Soft Power of Midcentury Design. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press: 2010, 312 pp., 97 b/w illus. $24.95, ISBN 9780816646920 Pat Kirkham Pat Kirkham Bard Graduate Center Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2011) 70 (3): 387–388. https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2011.70.3.387 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Pat Kirkham; Review: Cold War on the Home Front: The Soft Power of Midcentury Design by Greg Castillo. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 1 September 2011; 70 (3): 387–388. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2011.70.3.387 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentJournal of the Society of Architectural Historians Search Written in a lively and engaging manner, Cold War on the Home Front: The Soft Power of Midcentury Design is a major contribution to our understanding of Cold War propaganda, particularly as it played out in post—World War II Germany around issues of modern living and the availability of goods. Although the book focuses on the "soft power" of particular types of persuasion, the "hard" politics of the United States' effort to maintain world supremacy and the Eastern Bloc countries' attempt to counteract them underpins the exhibitions of model homes and furnishings discussed by Castillo. He situates the home and home furnishings at the center of the ideological battles between the United States and the USSR at a time when "America unleashed the largest international propaganda effort ever mounted in a time of peace" (24). Marshall Plan officials sought to persuade Europeans of the benefits of capitalism, characterized by an... You do not currently have access to this content.