Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 328
•
Trim: 6 x 9
978-0-7425-2793-5 • Paperback • July 2003 • $66.00 • (£51.00)
978-0-585-48277-4 • eBook • September 2004 • $62.50 • (£48.00)
Alan M. Ball is associate professor of history at Marquette University and the author of Russia's Last Capitalists: The Nepmen, 1921-1929 and And Now My Soul is Hardened: Abandoned Children in Soviet Russia, 1918-1930.
Chapter 1 Preface
Chapter 2 Introduction: The Land of the Benzine Pegasus
Chapter 3 The Early Soviet Era
Chapter 4 Soviet Americanism
Chapter 5 Heavenly Miracles
Chapter 6 Happy Endings and Jolly Guys
Chapter 7 Arch-Bourgeois Machines
Chapter 8 Catch and Surpass
Chapter 9 The Contemporary Era
Chapter 10 Holy Communion at McDonald's
Chapter 11 The American Model
Chapter 12 Counter Strike
Chapter 13 Conclusion: Gud-Bai Amerika?
Highly respected U.S. scholar Ball is mainly concerned with Russian attitudes and borrowings regarding U.S. technology and culture, but he also deals with Russian perceptions of the U.S. economic and political system and of American life in general. His excellent book is divided into two sections, 'The Early Soviet Period' and 'The Contemporary Era,' but it also briefly touches on the period between these two eras and flashes back occasionally to 19th-century opinions of the U.S. Ball's analysis is balanced, and he provides many useful statistics. Recommended. All levels and libraries...
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The most important strength of the book is its simultaneous evaluation of responses from both the masses and the elites to the American artifacts and techniques. Ball also deserves appreciation for his examination of everyday media, ranging from movies totractors. He has an exceptionally thorough and captivating writing style that maintains the reader's full attention throughout the book. All of these aspects render the book extremely interesting and easily accessible to readers at all levels who will take it up either for a class or for leisure...
— Burcak Keskin-Kozat
Engaging.....
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An imaginative and significant contribution to the history of modern Russia, Ball's study adeptly synthesizes important currents in contemporary Russian culture. It should appeal to all readers who are interested in how Soviet (and post-Soviet) Russians have grappled with the challenges imposed by modernity while attempting to maintain a national identity of their own....
— Scott W. Palmer, Western Illinois University