Winning Women's Hearts and Minds by Diana Cucuz explores a lesser-known aspect of Cold War history: the US government's use of the magazine Amerika to influence Russian women. This glossy Russian-language publication, produced by the United States Information Agency (USIA), aimed to portray American consumer culture and traditional gender norms as the ideal lifestyle for Soviet women.

Cucuz’s meticulous research, drawing from USIA archives, highlights the strategic deployment of idealized images of American women as fulfilled homemakers and mothers. These images were designed to contrast sharply with the Soviet portrayal of women as overworked and deprived, thereby presenting the American way of life as more appealing.

The book compares Amerika with popular American women’s magazines of the time, like Ladies’ Home Journal, revealing the careful curation of content to appeal specifically to Russian women. Cucuz offers a gendered analysis of the USIA's strategy, showing how conservative gender norms and images of domestic bliss were used to undermine Soviet ideology.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to review a temporary digital ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

During the cold war the US published a women's magazine in the USSR to show how wonderful life was in the US. Much of the magazine was based on The Ladies Home Journal and other women's magazines. The USSR also had their own magazine sold in the US showing how wonderful women's equality was. This books concentrates on the US magazine. The subject was interesting. I enjoyed reading about the magazine and I really enjoyed reading about the people behind it. The writing was a little dry and repetitive. There are some illustrations accompanying the text. I did learn a lot reading the book. Read this for the subject matter not the writing.

Winning Women's Hearts and Minds; Selling Cold War Culture in the US and the USSR by Diana Cucuz is a fascinating history of how the government has tried to get to the heart of families for support during the war; the mothers and wives.

A decent piece, but not exactly casual reading. This is outside my expertise so I was curious to learn more. It was quite "nitty gritty" and lacked visual organization. The paragraphs were long and dense, the photographs scattered at random. I think more editing and thoughtfulness could clean this up a bit. But for those interested in magazines and women's clothing in the USA during the Cold War, this is the best bet. Though I write that warily as this appears to be the author's first book, and there is no information about them on Goodreads.

An advanced copy was kindly provided by the publisher, upon request, via NetGalley.

From the 1950s until 1994, the United States Information Agency published a glossy Russian language magazine called Amerika. Its intended audience was Russian women, and it was structured very much like American women's magazines such as Ladies' Home Journal. As a propaganda instrument, it aimed to show Russian women the life of American women in the most attractive light. It highlighted fashions and labor-saving appliances, modern homes and family life. Dr. Diana Cucuz, the author of this fascinating study, starts by looking at the American magazines to see how they compare. It's at this point you realize that the American women's magazines were full of the same kind of propaganda that the Russian version was -- women putting home and family first, perhaps working in careers if it didn't interfere with bringing up the kids and looking out for husband, and doing it all while looking perfectly made up and in fashion. Of course, there was a propaganda effort from the Soviets at the same time, with a glossy magazine called USSR, distributed in the U.S., that showed how Soviet women were actually equal to men in their choices of careers. Take that, American women! There are plenty of images from the Amerika issues in this book, and lots of clips from articles that appeared. Thanks to NetGalley and University of Toronto Press for a digital review copy.

Very informative read. How American feminism and materialism was propagated since the cold war and how it consumed the minds of Russian women to be as they are today. A breakdown of the family , society and culture was the result.. Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read the book for an honest review.