The title Iron Curtain Twitchers evokes the image of the noisy neighbors who see everything but do not hear actual conversations or see the finer details of facial expressions as they observe from afar. It applies well to the subject of the book under review by Jennifer M. Hudson, which is an overview of Russo-American perceptions from the 1870s until the end of the Cold War, with an epilogue about post-Cold War relations. Hudson focuses on “Cold War rhetoric” and has identified three prominent rhetorical themes in Russo-American discourse: “contamination, containment, and coexistence.” Hudson is interested in “the disparate perspectives of politicians and citizens during the ideological conflict” (xx), and to that effect she focuses mostly on the writings of politicians, journalists, and travelers.

Hudson aligns herself with historian Walter LaFeber when she argues that “rhetoric associated with the Cold War emerged in the late nineteenth century” (xxvi). In Chapter 1, she narrates the “othering” that took place already in the late 1800s and dates the beginning of the Cold War to the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution. With the deterioration of Russian and American relations came the mutual focus on “ideological deformities” and a fear of contagion set in. Chapter 2 discusses the interwar years, which saw thousands of people crossing borders, most of them Americans, who went to Soviet Russia and produced numerous travelogues; this “transatlantic tourism” (46) received much attention in the American media.

Chapter 3, entitled “Peaceful Coexistence during the Great Patriotic War, 1939–1945,” focuses on the period of the Second World War, which is introduced as the period of “the first détente of the Cold War” (xxvii) and analyzed in the framework of peaceful coexistence. I find it unfortunate to apply the term Great Patriotic War (which took place from 1941–1945) to this period when discussing mutual perceptions and am not convinced that peaceful coexistence is the correct term for the détente that Hudson describes. She acknowledges the complexity of wartime relations, arguing that “Russian détente was outwardly more holistic than its American counterpart” (104), but somehow the focus on familiar tropes, such as Mission to Moscow, does not seem to get at the dramatically different wartime experiences of the general populace in the two countries, which became an important part of the Cold War narrative in the postwar period.

Chapter 4 covers the period from 1946 to 1959, which according to the traditional narrative saw the beginning of the Cold War. I agree with the important shift that is implied by ending the chapter in 1959, but nevertheless, this periodization brushes over the effect of Stalin's death on the Soviet cultural bureaucracy. More than “easing traveling restrictions” (140), the death of Stalin paved the way for a revival of Soviet-American cultural exchanges in 1955 and a fast-tracked pace to the official exchange agreement signed in January 1958. Hudson argues that the 1960s and 1970s, covered in Chapter 5, mirror the interwar years in their focus on “pernicious politics contrasted with the more comedic cultural communications” (xxvii). Indeed, nuclear brinkmanship coexisted with moviegoers’ black humor and satire, such as Dr. Strangelove. Chapter 6 explores “the decade of summits” (235) alongside some interesting grassroots initiatives, such as the Group for Establishing Trust between the USSR and the US, which attacked the prevalent rhetoric and hoped to influence the political dialogue taking place at the summits. A concluding chapter introduces the term partnerstvo and what is portrayed as the recent reappearance of Cold War mentalities.

Iron Curtain Twitchers is a wide-ranging study, both in its chosen time frame and the volume of sources consulted for the book. While the scope of the book is admirable, it is also its weak point. A reader will inevitably start seeing holes in the historiography, which does not engage with notable works on the Russian literary perception of the United States and perhaps more seriously, ignores much of the literature on the nature of propaganda, its dissemination, and the various responses to it, especially in cross-border encounters. Furthermore, in its approach, the book portrays “citizens,” “moviegoers,” and “travelers” very broadly, but also mentions groups such as journalists, diplomats, and dissidents without nodding to the growing literature on the complicated subjectivities of subcultures, professions, and cohorts in the Soviet Union.

To be fair, the book “does not pretend to be a comprehensive examination of the Cold War” (xxv), and its value lies in the broad focus on Russo-American political and cultural perceptions. Its narrative arc does indeed shows how history repeats itself, especially as cultural products react, recycle, and reuse the perceptions that appear in political and cultural tropes. Finally, the industrious use and citation of numerous digital source collections is valuable as inspiration for students of Soviet-American relations who want to delve deeper into some of the issues surveyed in this book.