Margaret Peacock, "Innocent Weapons: The Soviet and American Politics of Childhood in the Cold War" (UNC Press, 2014)

UNC Press Presents Podcast · Feb 12, 2019 · 1h 3m

In Innocent Weapons: The Soviet and American Politics of Childhood in the Cold War (University of North Press, 2014), Margaret Peacock analyzes the various ways in which images of children were put to use, in Soviet and American Cold War propaganda. From the Boy Scouts to the Pioneers, ubiquitous images of children portrayed the superiority of communism/capitalism.

Where children were used to showcase superiority, equally powerful were images of children as needing protection. In the United States, images of the child helped explain the need for nuclear testing and fallout shelters. From a…