Breaking Down Bipolarity

The series offers books that illuminate the multifaceted history of the Cold War in both its European and Global dimensions, across and beyond the Iron Curtain. It focuses on the interactions, interdependencies and co-operation of Eastern state socialist countries (and their citizens) with Western capitalist, Latin American, African and non-aligned states (and their citizens), as well as with China. The series aims to transcend the classical fields of high politics, government, and diplomacy. It pays special attention to transnational actors, entangled processes and events, as well as transcultural encounters and mutual representations across and beyond the Iron Curtain. From social, political, economic and/or cultural perspectives, the volumes in the series explore the ways in which individuals (as leaders or simply as citizens), civil society, institutions, and states reached across Cold War boundaries and, in the process, prepared the way for the convergence, conversion or interactions that helped create the post Cold War world. These contacts and connections constituted spaces where intermediary, non governmental actors like friendship societies, scholars, artists, sportspeople, tourists as well as top leaders and other more visible political and diplomatic actors impacted international relations and the realities in their own societies. In the process, these volumes also look, in new ways, at the problems on the home fronts on all sides of the Cold War as they were and are reflected in everyday culture, ordinary local perceptions of the Cold War, and the various Cold War mentalities.