Citizen Spy: Television, Espionage, and Cold War Culture (Commerce and Mass Culture Series) »

Kackman (radio, television, and film studies; U. of Texas) provides a cultural reading of American television spy shows of the 1950s and 60s. I Led 3 Lives, The Man Called X, and other early spy shows are examined in the context of the Cold War and televisual modes of civic nationalism. The parody of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Get Smart is examined as an example of disillusion with government. I Spy is discussed in terms of its racial politics. Finally, Mission Impossible and the tumultuous politics of the 1960s and 1970s are explored. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR