American comic books and their reflection of Cold War attitudes, 1945--1970: A study of the depiction of Communism and of Communist nations in United States comic books from the end of World War II through the height of the Vietnam War

From the beginnings of the Cold War in the latter half of the 1940s through the mid-1960s, American comic books---basically a form of children's popular literature---reflected official government policy and public attitudes toward Communism, the U.S.S.R., and "Red" China. After the mid-1960s, the increasingly divisive war in Vietnam interacted with societal changes in the U.S. and a growing audience of adolescents and young adults to influence mainstream American comic books to become less ideologically homogeneous. This examination of comic books of the Cold War era from 1945 through 1970 is presented in linear fashion and introduced by notes giving historical context. Its chapters deal with (a) the end of World War II to the start of the Korean War; (b) the Korean War years; (c) the post-Korean period to the Soviet launch of Sputnik; (d) 1958 through America's growing involvement in the Vietnam War; (e) the Vietnam War period.