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My current research focuses on Cold War memory. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990-91, Democrats joined Republicans in launching an initiative to define those events as a victory comparable to the defeat of fascism -— the defeat of the totalitarian enemy by the forces of freedom. This effort to shape public memory of the Cold War deployed powerful tools of political and cultural persuasion, seeking to establish museums and create monuments and identify historic sites at which the public could be told that the Cold War was, like World War II, a good war. The striking fact about this immense effort to shape public memory is that it failed. The monuments weren't built, the TV shows went unwatched, and the museums have now shifted their focus to other topics. In this book I will sort out the range of responses to Cold War commemoration, ranging from apathy to skepticism to resistance.
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JON WIENER Ph.D., Harvard University, 1973 Professor of History
Publications: Information about the John Lennon-FBI files. Information about “The 4 O’Clock Report” on KPFK 90.7 FM: www.JonWiener.com Courses:
The 2008 Election in Historical Perspective Cold War Culture, Graduate Seminar (Winter 2009)
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