Sensory Warfare in the Global Cold War
Partition, Propaganda, Covert Operations
Edited by Bodo Mrozek
Sensory Warfare in the Global Cold War
Partition, Propaganda, Covert Operations
Edited by Bodo Mrozek
The longest political conflict of the twentieth century, the Cold War, was carried out on the human senses—and through them. Largely conducted through nonlethal methods, it was a war of competing cultures, politics, and covert operations. While propaganda reached targets through vision and hearing, sensory warfare also exploited taste, touch, smell, and pain. This volume is the first to explore the sensory aspect of the Cold War and how this warfare changed contemporary perception of the war.
- Description
- Bio
- Table of Contents
- Sample Chapters
- Subjects
The authors highlight the global dimension of sensory warfare, examining battlegrounds around the world and across different phases of the conflict, including “cold” and “hot” warfare—both covert and overt. Case studies highlight the role of taste in Western food deliveries to Eastern Europe; olfaction in Poland, at the Iron Curtain, and in the Vietnam War; sonic warfare in Berlin, in Romania, and at the China-Taiwan “aquatic frontier”; vision in the Maoist Cultural Revolution, Spain, and the Soviet-Afghan war; haptics in the German military; and drugs, pain, and sensory deprivation in intelligence operations in both Hungary and the United States. In its wide-ranging treatment, this volume offers an illuminating new perspective on the Cold War and deepens our understanding of the sensory aspects of current and future conflicts.
Sensory Warfare in the Global Cold War will be of interest to students and scholars of sensory studies, Cold War studies, twentieth-century history, and military history. In addition to the editor, the contributors to this volume include Cyril Cordoba, Mark Fenemore, Walter E. Grunden, Dayton Lekner, José Manuel López Torán, Markus Mirschel, Victoria Phillips, Carsten Richter, Andreea Deciu Ritivoi, Christy Spackman, and Stephanie Weismann.
Bodo Mrozek is a historian and a senior researcher at the Berlin Center for Cold War Studies. He is the author of Jugend – Pop – Kultur: Eine transnationale Geschichte, also published in French as Histoire de la pop: Quand la culture jeune dépasse les frontières (années 1950–1960).
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Sensory Warfare in
the Global Cold War
Part I: Seduction, manipulation, othering
1. Chocolate Paratroopers and Eisenhower Packages for Eastern Europe: Nourishing Partition Through Colors and Taste
Victoria Phillips
2. Between Soir de Paris and Red Moscow: Olfactory Front Lines in Polish Perfumery
Stephanie Weismann
3. Beyond the Bamboo Curtain: Sensing the Chinese Cultural Revolution
Cyril Cordoba
4. Sensual Sirens: Gendering Berlin’s Cold War Telephony
Mark Fenemore
Part II: Partition, propaganda, sensory borders
5. Breaking the Aquatic Sound Barrier: Hearing Yourself and Your Enemy Across the Taiwan Strait
Dayton Lekner
6. Listening to the Voices of Exile: Radio Free Europe in Romania
Andreea Deciu Ritivoi
7. Hearing Korea, Seeing Cuba: NO-DO as Sonic and Visual Propaganda in Francoist Spain
José Manuel López Torán
8. The Smell of the Berlin Wall: Olfactory Border Management at the Inner-European Frontier
Bodo Mrozek
Part III: Mind control, covert operations, overt warfare
9. Hallucinated Sensations: Brainwashing and Mind Control in Psychochemical CIA Experiments
Walter E. Grunden
10. To Inform and Deceive: Sensory Approaches in the Military Propaganda of Cold War Germany
Carsten Richter
11. Sniffing the Enemy: Chemical Detection During the Vietnam War
Christy Spackman
12. Heroes at the Hindu Kush: Seeing the Afghan War Through the Soviet Lens
Markus Mirschel
List of Contributors
Index
Download a PDF sample chapter here: Introduction
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