John Updike and the Cold War: Drawing the Iron Curtain

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University of Missouri Press, 2001 - History - 192 pages
One of the most enduring and prolific American authors of the latter half of the twentieth century, John Updike has long been recognized by critics for his importance as a social commentator. Yet, John Updike and the Cold War is the first work to examine how Updike's views grew out of the defining context of American culture in his time -- the Cold War. Quentin Miller argues that because Updike's career began as the Cold War was taking shape in the mid-1950s, the world he creates in his entire literary oeuvre -- fiction, poetry, and nonfiction prose -- reflects the optimism and the anxiety of that decade.
 

Contents

Knowledge of an Immense Catastrophe
15
ZeroSum Marriages Global Games
38
Vietnam and the Politics of Undovishness
72
Seeing How the Other Half Lives
106
A Reason to Get Up in the Morning
145
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