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Cold War Brokers
Hungarian-American Cultural Exchanges and Transnational Mobility, 1956-1989
Cold War Brokers
Hungarian-American Cultural Exchanges and Transnational Mobility, 1956-1989
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Description
Examining Cold War encounters between Hungary and the US during the 1960s-80s, this book explores how academic and cultural mid-level mediators brokered official and informal ties between these separate geopolitical 'worlds' and identifies how their interactions shaped the cultural and scholarly environment of both countries.
Cold War Brokers follows the transnational adventures of writers, academics and teachers as they crossed the Iron Curtain literally and figuratively, facilitating the circulation of knowledge between the global centre and periphery. From Hungarian writers who toured the US with the International Writing Program, to music teachers who transferred the acclaimed Kodály-method to the US, and experts on Uralic and Altaic languages who introduced a separate branch of area studies to the US national security paradigm, these transnational mediators ushered in processes of inter-reliant modernization in cultural policy, education and science in both countries. Arguing that their collaboration could not merely undermine ideological dichotomies, but rewrite the history of the Cold War period and the imbalances of centre-periphery relations, László shows how non-state actors were able to use the opportunities presented by the Cold War for professional development and network building to achieve agency in Cold War encounters.
Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Archives
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Reclaiming the Hearts and Minds
Chapter 1. Exchanges: The Transformative Agenda of US Cultural Diplomacy
Chapter 2. Missions: Managing Trans-systemic Interactions in Socialist Hungary
Chapter 3. Agency: Trans-systemic Travelers and Mediators
Chapter 4: Scholars: The Transnational Foundations of Uralic and Altaic Studies
Chapter 5. Music Teachers: Promoting the Kodály-method
Chapter 6: Writers: Hungarians at the International Writing Program
Conclusions
Index of Names
Product details
| Published | 22 Jan 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (PDF) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Extent | 320 |
| ISBN | 9781350455009 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 10 bw illus |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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Cold War Brokers is an outstanding contribution to the transnational history of the Cold War era. It joins a growing body of scholarship demonstrating that, while the period imposed significant limitations on the mobility of people and ideas, there was also substantial cooperation across the systemic divide between the capitalist and socialist worlds. Drawing on previously unused archival sources, Cold War Brokers provides a nuanced and insightful overview of the developments between Hungary and the United States, presented in a way that will be highly relevant to any scholar working on Cold War cultural exchanges.
Simo Mikkonen, University of Eastern Finland, Finland
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This is a spectacular book: grounded in deep research, Cold War Brokers reveals the larger logic of East-West academic exchange while never losing sight of its unique, often tantalizingly colorful Hungarian actors. As scholars, music pedagogues, and writers interacted with their American hosts, they creatively navigated antagonistic yet interconnected political and intellectual truth regimes. Exceptional work that illuminates both the universal and the particular.
Theodora Dragostinova, The Ohio State University, USA

























