Hearts, Minds, Voices

Jason C. Parker

"For over four decades, the Cold War superpowers endeavored mightily to 'win hearts and minds' abroad through strategies that came to be called public diplomacy. While many target audiences were on the original front lines of the conflict in Europe, other larger audiences resided in areas outside Europe, regions then in the throes of decolonization. This book explores how, for all the blood and drama of intervention, crisis, and revolution during the Cold War, the vast majority of these non-Europeans experienced it as a media war for their allegiance rather than as a violent war for their lives. In these outlying regions, superpower public diplomacy encountered volatile issues of race, empire, poverty, and decolonization--all of which intersected unpredictably with the dynamics of the Cold War and anti-imperialist currents. The challenge to U.S. public diplomacy was acute.^ At a time...