Cold War Comforts

Reviews / Votes

"Cold War Comforts is a fascinating account of Canadian women's international activism during the Cold War." - Kevin Brushett, Royal Military College of Canada, British Journal of Canadian Studies, Volume 27. Number 1 "Building wonderfully on the work of the Cold War historians who precede her, Brookfield uses her own research to provide new voices that deepen our understanding of this precarious time in Canadian history. Cold War Comforts is an engaging look at the many women who navigated new waters to ensure a peaceful future for their children, and for our country." -- Joanna Dawson -- Canada's History, 201306 "Most innovative in this study is Brookfield's juxtaposing women's disarmament and peace initiatives with foster parent and international adoption schemes. She shows how women as activists and individuals operated both at home and abroad, traveling to such Cold War hotspots as Greece, Korea, and Vietnam in an effort to carry out child protection work.... Importantly, although her focus is on women's activism, she writes children into that activist history, showing how the Cold War infiltrated schools and fundraising and perhaps shaped children's consciousness concerning their place in the emergent global village. It's here that the reader searches for more; although it is a sign of a good book that it points so clearly to subsequent research questions.... This lively and rewarding book helps us reconceptualize important twentieth-century developments, confirming the place of women and children in the history of the Cold War." -- Tamara Myers, Department of History, University of British Columbia -- H-Net "The years 1945 to 1975 take on a certain "golden era" hue in collective memory, even while the domestic security this suggests belies the consistent, at times intense, Cold War anxieties of the larger global setting. In this study, Tarah Brookfield explores the historic complexities so deftly captured in her book's title: the "Cold War comforts" that the women at her story's centre were so intent to bring about on behalf of children, ever the globe's most vulnerable citizens. She offers a masterful analysis of the ways in which the period's interwoven concerns about gender, family, class, "race," age, national identity and international security coalesced on the children who embody the future. In a lively and engaging manner, Dr. Brookfield draws upon the fascinating oral histories of the female historical actors and their families, to show how Canadian women faced the challenges of protecting and enhancing the welfare of children-our own and those of less fortunate nations-by vigorously taking up the cause of peace, security and human rights, at home and across the globe. As she demonstrates, although infused by "traditional" commitments to maternalism, nationalism and internationalism, their courageous activism played a vital role in the reconfiguration of ideas and practices about gender, family, children's rights and women's roles that unfolded in this rapidly-changing postwar world. Tarah Brookfield's Cold War Comforts: Canadian Women, Child Safety, and Global Insecurity, 1945-1975 , is quite simply an inaugural study. It breaks new ground in our historical understanding of postwar Canadian society and culture, and national and international social policy formation, within shifting contexts of peace, war, and the persistent threat of global annihilation. We are delighted to welcome this important addition to Wilfrid Laurier University Press's multidisciplinary Studies in Childhood and Family in Canada series." -- Cynthia Comacchio, Department of History, Wilfrid Laurier University, series editor,Studies in Childhood and Family in Canada "If you wish to understand how the Cold War actually affected most Canadians, this is the book to read. Quite properly it directs our attention to women's individual and collective efforts to ensure safety for children at home and abroad. Men might have supplied the Cold War's military face, as with Dr. Strangelove, but the other not-so-gentle sex supplied many of the key strategists for peace. Tarah Brookfield does a wonderful job in telling us just how this happened. Her discussion of bomb shelters, disarmament campaigns, and support for the United Nations, foster parenting, and international adoption is lively and thoughtful and ought to help revitalize Canadian discussion of the relations between foreign policy and domestic affairs." -- Veronica Strong-Boag, University of British Columbia, author of Fostering Nation? Canada Confronts Its History of Childhood Disadvantage (WLU Press, 2011)