All the Views Fit to Print

New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt/M., Oxford, Wien. ill. All the Views Fit to Print is a comprehensive, century-long study of the changing images of the United States in Pravda political cartoons, appearing from the newspaper's founding (1912) through its final days as the official news organ of the Community Party of the Soviet Union (1991). Based on quantitative as well as qualitative content analysis of Pravda's editorial caricatures, the book provides a lively study of the newspaper's agitational and propaganda mission to define and reflect the 'American way of life' for its Soviet readers. This book is illustrated with nearly one hundred political caricatures, as well as eleven tables depicting cartoon themes and trends over nearly a century of anti-American agitational-propaganda. 'An old Moscow quip holds that 'There is no truth in 'Pravda' (The Truth) and no news in 'Izvestia' (The News).' Be that as it may, Kevin J. McKenna of the University of Vermont has convincingly demonstrated that there was a surprising amount of biting wit in the gray pages of the Soviet Union's chief propaganda organ. Tracing the ups and downs of U.S.-Soviet relations with scholarly precision, McKenna has shown how cartoons were harnessed in the attack on Russia's rivals abroad and on the laggards at home. This well-researched book is a 'must read' for anyone interested in the politics of satire during the Cold War years.' (Nicholas Daniloff, Moscow Correspondent for 'U.S. News' and 'World Report, ' 1981-1986)