Kristy Ironside – författare
Visar alla böcker från författaren . Handla med fri frakt och snabb leverans.
2 produkter
2 produkter
- Nyhet
Häftad, Engelska, 2026
259 kr
Skickas
Cold War defections were highly public spectacles, often dominating headlines for weeks and fuelling propaganda about the irresistible allure of freedom. Yet only a minority of defectors were political dissidents before leaving; despite how they may have publicly represented their actions, most defectors crossed borders for reasons ranging from economic opportunity to a spur-of-the-moment decision.Cold War Defectors redefines the political and personal stakes of defection, a complex and historically specific Cold War phenomenon that largely came to an end with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The first part of the book traces citizens from the communist East who fled to the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, often at great personal risk and from unexpected locations across the globe. The second part turns to other key waypoints of defection – Berlin, Hong Kong, and Vietnam – where movement occurred in both directions and on a striking scale. Together the chapters reveal a wide range of individual experiences and government responses, showing how states struggled to distinguish refugees, migrants, and defectors. They also highlight the role of non-state actors, the framing power of the media, and the agency of defectors themselves, whether they were elite insiders trading political or cultural capital for asylum or ordinary individuals navigating familiar tropes of Cold War escape.Spanning multiple continents and linking defection to espionage, intelligence, and media culture, Cold War Defectors presents a riveting portrait of what it meant to switch sides in a divided world.
Del 191 - Harvard Historical Studies
Full-Value Ruble
The Promise of Prosperity in the Postwar Soviet Union
Inbunden, Engelska, 2021
411 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
A new history shows that, despite Marxism’s rejection of money, the ruble was critical to the Soviet Union’s promise of shared prosperity for its citizens.In spite of Karl Marx’s proclamation that money would become obsolete under Communism, the ruble remained a key feature of Soviet life. In fact, although Western economists typically concluded that money ultimately played a limited role in the Soviet Union, Kristy Ironside argues that money was both more important and more powerful than most histories have recognized. After the Second World War, money was resurrected as an essential tool of Soviet governance. Certainly, its importance was not lost on Soviet leaders, despite official Communist Party dogma. Money, Ironside demonstrates, mediated the relationship between the Soviet state and its citizens and was at the center of both the government’s and the people’s visions for the maturing Communist project. A strong ruble—one that held real value in workers’ hands and served as an effective labor incentive—was seen as essential to the economic growth that would rebuild society and realize Communism’s promised future of abundance.Ironside shows how Soviet citizens turned to the state to remedy the damage that the ravages of the Second World War had inflicted upon their household economies. From the late 1940s through the early 1960s, progress toward Communism was increasingly measured by the health of its citizens’ personal finances, such as greater purchasing power, higher wages, better pensions, and growing savings. However, the increasing importance of money in Soviet life did not necessarily correlate to improved living standards for Soviet citizens. The Soviet government’s achievements in “raising the people’s material welfare” continued to lag behind the West’s advances during a period of unprecedented affluence. These factors combined to undermine popular support for Soviet power and confidence in the Communist project.