Manhood and American political culture in the Cold War

Manhood and American Political Culture in the Cold Warnbsp;explores the meaning of anxiety as expressed through the political and cultural language of the early cold war era. Cuordileone shows how the preoccupation with the soft, malleable American character reflected not only anti-Communism but acute anxieties about manhood and sexuality. Reading major figures like Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Adlai Stevenson, Joseph McCarthy, Norman Mailer, JFK, and many lesser known public figures, Cuordileone reveals how the era's cult of toughness shaped the political dynamics of the time and inspired a reinvention of the liberal as a cold warrior.

Prologue	p. vii
Chapter 1 Postwar Liberalism and the Crisis of Liberal Masculinity	p. 1
"Politics in an Age of Anxiety"	p. 5
Masculinity in Crisis?	p. 9
Not Left, Not Right, but a Vital Center	p. 17
Chapter 2 Anti-Communism on the Right: The Politics of Perversion	p. 37
"Twenty Years of Treason"	p. 40
Panic on the Potomac	p. 49
Pinks, Lavenders, and Reds	p. 67
Adelaide	p. 88
Chapter 3 Conformity, Sexuality, and the Beleaguered Male Self of the 1950s	p. 97
Imprisoned in Brotherhood	p. 105
Manhood and Conformity	p. 118
The Unmanning of American Men	p. 124
The Flight from Masculinity	p. 145
Must You Conform?	p. 152
Chapter 4 Reinventing the Liberal as Superman	p. 167
Affluence and Its Discontents	p. 172
Kennedy vs. Nixon	p. 180
The Liberal as Playboy	p. 194
The Cult of Toughness	p. 201
The Counterinsurgent	p. 220
Afterword	p. 237
Notes	p. 247

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