Nikita Khrushchev's Journey Into America

When Nikita Khrushchev toured America in 1959--the first Russian leader ever to set foot in the Western Hemisphere, let alone the United States--the country was enjoying a period of unprecedented prosperity, just as the Cold War and the possibility of thermonuclear annihilation were causing widespread, bone-deep dread throughout the land. This book for the first time fully explores Khrushchev's journey as a reflection of a critical moment in US life. Deeply researched and deftly written, Nikita Khrushchev's Journey into America captures that moment in all its complexity and implications, describing not only the Russian leader's occasionally surreal itinerary (a tantrum at being denied entry into Disneyland, for instance, or a near-riot upon wandering into a grocery store in San Francisco) but also the tenor of the crowds and the country along the way.

Following Khrushchev from his arrival in the nation's capital to the eerily silent greeting of hundreds of thousands of spectators to his tickling of pigs, kissing of babies, and glad-handing of union workers and farm laborers in rural Iowa to his encounter with President Dwight Eisenhower, Nelson and Schoenbachler's work offers glimpses of the clash between a true believer in the Soviet system and the icons of capitalism and visions of prosperity he repeatedly confronted on his trip. At the same time the book shows us the American people of the time coming to terms with who they were even as they confronted the embodiment of everything they believed they weren't: atheistic, socialist, and ideological.

As the narrative unfolds, Khrushchev's visit can be understood as easily the most democratic event of the Cold War, one that laid bare the depth of ideological commitments on both sides of the geopolitical divide as well as the key role of religion in shaping Americans' reactions to the Soviet leader and to the Cold War itself.

Author: Matthew Schoenbachler, Lawrence J. Nelson
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 05/31/2019
Pages: 296
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.30lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.40w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780700627882

Review Citation(s):
Choice 12/01/2019

About the Author
Schoenbachler, Matthew: - Lawrence J. Nelson was the author of King Cotton's Advocate: Oscar G. Johnston and the New Deal.

Matthew Schoenbachler is a professor of history at the University of North Alabama. He is the author of Murder and Madness: The Myth of the Kentucky Tragedy.