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Civil Defense Begins at Home: Militarization Meets Everyday Life in the Fifties
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Civil Defense Begins at Home: Militarization Meets Everyday Life in the Fifties Hardback - 2000

by Laura McEnaney

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Reader reviews for Civil Defense Begins at Home: Militarization Meets Everyday Life in the Fifties

From the publisher

Dad built a bomb shelter in the backyard, Mom stocked the survival kit in the basement, and the kids practiced ducking under their desks at school. This was family life in the new era of the A-bomb. This was civil defense. In this provocative work of social and political history, Laura McEnaney takes us into the secretive world of defense planners and the homes of ordinary citizens to explore how postwar civil defense turned the front lawn into the front line. The reliance on atomic weaponry as a centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy cast a mushroom cloud over everyday life. American citizens now had to imagine a new kind of war, one in which they were both combatants and targets. It was the Federal Civil Defense Administration's job to encourage citizens to adapt to their nuclear present and future.

As McEnaney demonstrates, the creation of a civil defense program produced new dilemmas about the degree to which civilian society should be militarized to defend itself against internal and external threats. Conflicts arose about the relative responsibilities of state and citizen to fund and implement a home-front security program. The defense establishment's resolution was to popularize and privatize military preparedness. The doctrine of "self-help" defense demanded that citizens become autonomous rather than rely on the federal government for protection. Families would reconstitute themselves as paramilitary units that could quash subversion from within and absorb attack from without.

Because it solicited an unprecedented degree of popular involvement, the FCDA offers a unique opportunity to explore how average citizens, community leaders, and elected officials both participated in and resisted the creation of the national security state. Drawing on a wide variety of archival sources, McEnaney uncovers the broad range of responses to this militarization of daily life and reveals how government planners and ordinary people negotiated their way at the dawn of the atomic age. Her work sheds new light on the important postwar debate about what total military preparedness would actually mean for American society.

First line

IN JANUARY 1951, the midwestern states had just survived a series of harsh winter storms, and the Federal Civil Defense Administration received official status as an independent agency.

From the rear cover

"This book argues compellingly that the debate over civil defense in the 1950s contributed significantly to the militarization of American culture. McEnaney's real contribution is to broaden our understanding of military and domestic policy in the 1950s. Her work on gender is extremely important here, and her final chapter on race and class adds an important dimension to our sense of Cold War military policy."--Allan M. Winkler, Miami University

Details

  • Title Civil Defense Begins at Home: Militarization Meets Everyday Life in the Fifties
  • Author Laura McEnaney
  • Binding Hardback
  • Edition 1st Edition
  • Pages 240
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Princeton University Press, Ewing, New Jersey, U.S.A.
  • Publication date 2000-07-09
  • Features Bibliography
  • ISBN 9780691001388 / 0691001383
  • Weight 1.09 lbs (0.49 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.52 x 6.35 x 0.85 in (24.18 x 16.13 x 2.16 cm)
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 20th Century
  • Category Politics / Current Events
  • Library of Congress subjects United States - Politics and government -, Civil defense - United States
  • Library of Congress Catalogue Number 99087365
  • Dewey Decimal Code 363.350

Media reviews

Citations

  • Choice, 01/01/2001, Page 967

About the author

Laura McEnaney is Assistant Professor of History at Whittier College in California.

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Civil Defense Begins at Home: Militarization Meets Everyday Life in the Fifties
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Civil Defense Begins at Home: Militarization Meets Everyday Life in the Fifties

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Civil Defense Begins at Home : Militarization Meets Everyday Life in the Fifties
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Civil Defense Begins at Home : Militarization Meets Everyday Life in the Fifties

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by Laura McEnaney

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Hardback. New. Demonstrates that the creation of a civil defense program produced dilemmas about the degree to which civilian society should be militarized to defend itself against threats. This book uncovers responses to the militarization of daily life and reveals how government planners and ordinary people negotiated their way at the dawn of the atomic age.
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Civil Defense Begins At Home
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Civil Defense Begins at Home
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Civil Defense Begins at Home

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Civil Defense Begins at Home

by McEnaney, Laura

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Civil Defense Begins at Home [Hardcover] McEnaney, Laura
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Civil Defense Begins at Home [Hardcover] McEnaney, Laura

by McEnaney, Laura

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9780691001388 / 0691001383
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