The Other Cold War

Heonik Kwon

Published by Columbia University Press 2010

The Other Cold War

Heonik Kwon

In the series Columbia Studies in International and Global History

https://doi.org/10.7312/kwon15304

Overview
Contents

About this book

In this conceptually bold project, Heonik Kwon uses anthropology to interrogate the cold war's cultural and historical narratives. Adopting a truly panoramic view of local politics and international events, he challenges the notion that the cold war was a global struggle fought uniformly around the world and that the end of the war marked a radical, universal rupture in modern history.

Incorporating comparative ethnographic study into a thorough analysis of the period, Kwon upends cherished ideas about the global and their hold on contemporary social science. His narrative describes the slow decomposition of a complex social and political order involving a number of local and culturally creative processes. While the nations of Europe and North America experienced the cold war as a time of "long peace," postcolonial nations entered a different reality altogether, characterized by vicious civil wars and other exceptional forms of violence. Arguing that these events should be integrated into any account of the era, Kwon captures the first sociocultural portrait of the cold war in all its subtlety and diversity.

Author / Editor information

Heonik Kwon is reader in anthropology at the London School of Economics and previously taught at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Ghosts of War in Vietnam and After the Massacre: Commemoration and Consolation in Ha My and My Lai.

Reviews

Javan D. Frazier:
Kwon's focus on the local experience of the Cold War is a valuable contribution to the scholarship of Cold War studies and helps readers to better connect with the violent upheaval that the Cold War created in the lives of many in the world.

Jeffrey James Byrne:
The Other Cold War should quickly become necessary reading for all those interested in the global historiography of the late twentieth century.

Mark Philip Bradley:
Brilliant and timely

Andrew Preston:
The Other Cold War is a fascinating investigation of the very meaning of the Cold War. Given its brevity, it can only be suggestive-this is not a comprehensive history of the postwar era but a primer on how to reimagine what we have long taken for granted. it is as brilliant as it is iconoclastic.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part 1 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
Part 2 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
Part 3 Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	153
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	205

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 232

eBook

Published: December 1, 2010
ISBN: 9780231526708