The Cold War was a turbulent time to grow up in. Family ties were tested, friendships were torn apart and new beliefs forged out of the ruins of old loyalties. In this book, through twelve evocative stories of childhood and early adulthood in Australia during the Cold War years, writers from vastly different backgrounds explore how global political events affected the intimate space of home, family life and friendships. Some writers were barely in their teens when they felt the first touches of their parents’ political lives, both on the Left and the Right. Others grew up in households well attuned to activism across the spectrum, including anti-communism, workers’ rights, anti-Vietnam War, anti-apartheid and women’s rights. Sifting through the key political and social developments in Australia from the end of World War II to the early 1990s, including the referendum to ban the Communist Party of Australia, the rise of ‘the Movement’ and the Labor split, and post-war migration, this book is a powerful and poignant telling of the ways in which the political is personal.

It's with an honorable and earnest voice that authors and longtime friends Jack Tarvin and Ed Paquette dramatize their experiences in border surveillance camps between West Germany and Czechoslovakia in 1968. It is a detailed and moving narrative, written by two men who lived it, that simultaneously entertains and pays homage to the men and women who served on "Freedom's First Line of Defense" during the Cold War. For many GIs, it's an all-expense tour of Europe-seeing and doing things that would've otherwise been impossible. At the same time, it's a gravely serious and frightening period that will impact the rest of their lives. The collection of vignettes digs into the triumphs and challenges, the comedic and serious, and, ultimately, the indomitable spirit of the United States and its soldiers. Experience staring into the freezing cold, snowy darkness and wondering who's staring back, when the next land mine might detonate under the weight of the snowpack, or under some unlucky refugee trying to escape. Experience what many of our American mothers and fathers did while serving their country in Cold War on the borders of Eastern Europe. Experience What did you do in the Cold War, Daddy?

As memories of the Cold War recede, it becomes more and more difficult to remember what it was about and why it evoked such feelings of intensity and fatalism. Fortunately, we have a gold mine of movies and novels to help us recall why an entire generation of Americans grew up ducking under school desks in air raid drills and stocking the family bomb shelter. Cold War Fantasies retrieves those times, based on the idea that a nation's history, self-concept, and collective anxiety are reflected in popular culture. In Cold War Fantasies, Ronnie Lipschutz combines an historical account of foreign and domestic politics from 1945 to 1995 with summaries and analyses of thirty novels and films contemporaneously published and produced. Lipschutz rejects the standard line on the Cold War and critically examines the impacts and effects of language and images on politics. Viewing those films and reading those novels enables the reader to come away with a clearer sense of how people felt during the Cold War period--about themselves, about "the enemy," and about the world while living in the shadow of the atomic bomb.

Seeking Meaning, Seeking Justice in the Post-Cold War World, edited by Judith Keene and Elizabeth Rechniewski, addresses the diverse modes by which the Cold War is being re-assessed, with major focus on countries on the periphery of Cold War confrontation.

Bread and Roses is an Australian first, a collection of stories from academics who identify as coming from working-class backgrounds. At once inspiring and challenging, the collection demonstrates how individual narratives are both personal and structural, in that they illustrate the ways in which social forces shape individual lives. Central themes in the book are generational changes in university education provision in Australia, the complexities of coming from a working class background and being female, or coming from a working class background and being female and a recent migrant, and the particular challenges facing students and staff from rural and regional areas. An essential read for anyone interested in widening participation programs in higher education, including administrators, academics, past and present students, Bread and Roses is both a map for those who want to undertake a similar journey and a community for those who want to join.