Portside

This book chronicles the World War II-Cold War-era program that encouraged private pen pal correspondence between women in the USA and the Soviet Union, an initiative that fell victim to the rancorous politics of the era.

This book's point, writes reviewer Adams, "is to sketch an alternate history of psychedelic drugs before their adoption by the counterculture."

Reviewer Wald praises this book's "grace," for the way its author "puts into conversation the deeply intertwined histories of what he calls 'straight, gay, or otherwise queer' people and the radical anti-capitalist movement."

Reviewer Wikström examines this well-known cultural critic's massive, ambitious, yet flawed study of post World War II U.S. culture and its influence.

In their encounters with Western art, Soviet audiences found ways to reimagine themselves.

Ernest Lawrence was a leading member of the scientific community that invented the atom bomb. He was also a pioneer in the growth of the military industrial complex. Michael Hiltzik tells this history in his new book. Sam Kean observes in this review that "there is much to admire and much to mourn" here, as we continue to live with the complex legacy of Big Science three quarters of a century after its emergence.