Dr. Strangelove's America
Title | Dr. Strangelove's America PDF eBook |
Author | Margot A. Henriksen |
Publisher | Univ of California Press |
Pages | 496 |
Release | 2023-04-28 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0520340906 |
Did America really learn to "stop worrying and love the bomb," as the title of Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film, Dr. Strangelove, would have us believe? Does that darkly satirical comedy have anything in common with Martin Luther King Jr.'s impassioned "I Have a Dream" speech or with Elvis Presley's throbbing "I'm All Shook Up"? In Margot Henriksen's vivid depiction of the decades after World War II, all three are expressions of a cultural revolution directly related to the atomic bomb. Although many scientists and other Americans protested the pursuit of nuclear superiority after World War II ended, they were drowned out by Cold War rhetoric that encouraged a "culture of consensus." Nonetheless, Henriksen says, a "culture of dissent" arose, and she traces this rebellion through all forms of popular culture. At first, artists expressed their anger, anxiety, and despair in familiar terms that addressed nuclear reality only indirectly. But Henriksen focuses primarily on new modes of expression that emerged, discussing the disturbing themes of film noir (with extended attention to Alfred Hitchcock) and science fiction films, Beat poetry, rock 'n' roll, and Pop Art. Black humor became a primary weapon in the cultural revolution while literature, movies, and music gave free rein to every possible expression of the generation gap. Cultural upheavals from "flower power" to the civil rights movement accentuated the failure of old values. Filled with fascinating examples of cultural responses to the Atomic Age, Henriksen's book is a must-read for anyone interested in the United States at mid-twentieth century.
Edward Teller
Title | Edward Teller PDF eBook |
Author | Peter Goodchild |
Publisher | Harvard University Press |
Pages | 520 |
Release | 2004 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 9780674016699 |
Goodchild unravels the complex web of harsh early experiences, character flaws, and personal and professional frustrations that lay behind the paradox of "the father of the H-bomb."
Calling Dr. Strangelove
Title | Calling Dr. Strangelove PDF eBook |
Author | George Case |
Publisher | McFarland |
Pages | 213 |
Release | 2014-08-23 |
Genre | Performing Arts |
ISBN | 1476618488 |
Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is one of the most celebrated and significant films ever made. This book traces the movie's origins as a thriller novel through its evolution into a devastating black comedy, to its ultimate reception as an undisputed cinema classic. A wealth of fresh detail is provided on Dr. Strangelove's production, its initial reception and its lasting influence. The book also examines the film within the context of the real-life superpower standoff it satirized and evaluates its place alongside director Kubrick's entire catalog of famous works. Drawn from interviews, biographical research and extensive cultural analysis, this work is an indispensable resource for Kubrick fans, movie buffs and students of Cold War history.
Red Alert
Title | Red Alert PDF eBook |
Author | Peter Bryant |
Publisher | RosettaBooks |
Pages | 175 |
Release | 2011-03-01 |
Genre | Fiction |
ISBN | 0795311583 |
The basis for Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, Dr. Strangelove: A chilling Cold War thriller in which unchecked power unleashes total nuclear disaster. Air Force Brigadier General Quinten is a dying man suffering from the paranoid delusion that he can make the world a better place by ordering a full-scale nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Receiving word of the attack already underway, the president of the United States and his advisors now must work frantically to stop it. The US bombers are to be shot down—but a lone bomber called the “Alabama Angel” escapes and flies on to complete its lunatic mission, ignoring the president’s orders. A ghastly and chilling vision of what might happen when profound and deadly power is put into the wrong hands, this classic thriller continues to serve as a warning in today’s tumultuous political climate.
Deconstructing Dr. Strangelove
Title | Deconstructing Dr. Strangelove PDF eBook |
Author | Sean M. Maloney |
Publisher | U of Nebraska Press |
Pages | 615 |
Release | 2020-07-01 |
Genre | Performing Arts |
ISBN | 1640123490 |
King of the Cold War crisis film, Dr. Strangelove became a cultural touchstone from the moment of its release in 1964. The duck-and-cover generation saw it as a satire on nuclear issues and Cold War thinking. Subsequent generations, removed from the film's historical moment, came to view it as a quasi-documentary about an unfathomable secret world. Sean M. Maloney uses Dr. Strangelove and other genre classics like Fail Safe and The Bedford Incident to investigate a curious pop cultural contradiction. Nuclear crisis films repeatedly portrayed the failures of the Cold War's deterrent system. Yet the system worked. What does this inconsistency tell us about the genre? What does it tell us about the deterrent system, for that matter? Blending film analysis with Cold War history, Maloney looks at how the celluloid crises stack up against reality--or at least as much of reality as we can reconstruct from these films with confidence. The result is a daring intellectual foray that casts new light on Dr. Strangelove, one of the Cold War era's defining films.
Reconstructing Strangelove
Title | Reconstructing Strangelove PDF eBook |
Author | Mick Broderick |
Publisher | Wallflower Press |
Pages | 0 |
Release | 2017 |
Genre | Dr. Strangelove (Motion picture) |
ISBN | 9780231177085 |
With rare access to unpublished materials, this volume assesses Dr. Strangelove's narrative accuracy, consulting recently declassified Cold War nuclear-policy documents alongside interviews with Kubrick's collaborators. It focuses on the myths surrounding the film.
The Age of Radiance
Title | The Age of Radiance PDF eBook |
Author | Craig Nelson |
Publisher | Simon and Schuster |
Pages | 448 |
Release | 2014-03-25 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 145166043X |
"Radiation is a complex and paradoxical concept: staggering amounts of energy flow from seemingly inert rock and that energy is both useful and dangerous. While nuclear energy affects our everyday lives--from nuclear medicine and food irradiation to microwave technology--its invisible rays trigger biological damage, birth defects, and cellular mayhem. From the end of the nineteenth century through the use of the atomic bomb in World War II to the twenty-first century's confrontation with the dangers of nuclear power, Craig Nelson illuminates a pageant of fascinating historical figures: Enrico Fermi, Marie and Pierre Curie, Albert Einstein, FDR, Robert Oppenheimer, and Ronald Reagan, among others. He reveals many little-known details, including how Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler transformed America from a country that created light bulbs and telephones into one that split atoms; how the most grotesque weapon ever invented could realize Alfred Nobel's lifelong dream of global peace; how emergency workers and low-level utility employees fought to contain a run-amok nuclear reactor, while wondering if they would live or die. Brilliantly fascinating and remarkably accessible, The Age of Radiance traces mankind's complicated and difficult relationship with the dangerous power it discovered and made part of civilization"--