Simon Huxtable is Lecturer in Modern European History at Birkbeck, University of London. His work focuses on the history of the Soviet Union, with a particular focus on mass media. He is the co-author, with Sabina Mihelj, of From Media Systems to Media Cultures: Understanding Socialist Television (2018) and has published a number of journal articles and book chapters on the history of the press and television in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

This meticulously researched and well-written book highlights the central role that journalism played in most political, social, and cultural processes in the postwar Soviet Union...A pleasure to read, this book fills a large lacuna in our understanding of the Soviet information universe.

• Introduction: Reformers and Propagandists: The Paradoxes of Postwar Soviet Journalism Part I: 1945-1957: Ritual Socialism 1: Rituals, Routines, and Ideology in the Late Stalinist Press 2: Satire, Sensations, and Slander: Criticism and Self-Criticism from Stalin to the Secret Speech Part II: 1956-1964: Romantic Socialism 3: Far From Moscow: Heroic Autobiographies and the Paradoxes of Thaw Modernity 4: From Word to Deed: The Communard Method and Thaw Citizenship Part III: 1960-1970: Reforming Socialism 5: The Institute of Public Opinion and the Birth of Soviet Polling 6: From Technocracy to Stagnation: When Did the Thaw Freeze Over? Epilogue: Thaw Journalism after the Thaw

Simon Huxtable is Lecturer in Modern European History at Birkbeck, University of London. His work focuses on the history of the Soviet Union, with a particular focus on mass media. He is the co-author, with Sabina Mihelj, of From Media Systems to Media Cultures: Understanding Socialist Television (2018) and has published a number of journal articles and book chapters on the history of the press and television in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

This meticulously researched and well-written book highlights the central role that journalism played in most political, social, and cultural processes in the postwar Soviet Union...A pleasure to read, this book fills a large lacuna in our understanding of the Soviet information universe.

• Introduction: Reformers and Propagandists: The Paradoxes of Postwar Soviet Journalism Part I: 1945-1957: Ritual Socialism 1: Rituals, Routines, and Ideology in the Late Stalinist Press 2: Satire, Sensations, and Slander: Criticism and Self-Criticism from Stalin to the Secret Speech Part II: 1956-1964: Romantic Socialism 3: Far From Moscow: Heroic Autobiographies and the Paradoxes of Thaw Modernity 4: From Word to Deed: The Communard Method and Thaw Citizenship Part III: 1960-1970: Reforming Socialism 5: The Institute of Public Opinion and the Birth of Soviet Polling 6: From Technocracy to Stagnation: When Did the Thaw Freeze Over? Epilogue: Thaw Journalism after the Thaw