Table of Contents

Introduction Chapter 1: World War II and Inventing America on the Borders of Socialist Imagination: the Origins of American Studies in the USSR Chapter 2: Discovering America by Studying Russian-US Relations Chapter 3: Academic Exchanges and Soviet Americanists during the Cold War Chapter 4: Soviet Americanists and the Impact of American Cinema and Television on the Soviet Union Chapter 5: Playing American Indians and Soviet Indianistika Chapter 6: Carving Academic and National Identity of Ukrainian Americanists Epilogue: Perestroika and the Crisis of Soviet Amerikanistika

Promotional Information

In 1991 there were more than 1,000 'Americanists' - experts in US history and politics - working in the Soviet Union.

About the Author

Sergei Zhuk is a professor of Russian and eastern European history at Ball State University and has just finished a visiting professorship at Columbia University. He received his first PhD (in US history) from the Institute of World History in Moscow and his second (in Russian history) from Johns Hopkins University. Zhuk is the author of the acclaimed Rock and Roll in the Rocket City (2010), Popular Culture, Identity and Soviet Youth in Dniepropetrovsk, 1959-1984 (2008) and Russia's Lost Reformation (2004), as well as numerous books in Russian.