I specialize in American, women’s and cultural history, and the intersections of foreign and domestic policy with politics, society, and culture. My research focuses on the ways in which the U.S. government and media politicized women, traditional gender roles, and consumer culture during the Cold War.

My first book, Winning Women’s Hearts and Minds (University of Toronto Press, 2023), demonstrates how print culture was utilized to deploy images of supposedly happy American women as feminine wives, mothers, and homemakers living within a capitalist consumer culture. Through “polite propaganda,” such as the Ladies’ Home Journal and Amerika, the U.S. government hoped to convince American and Russian women of the superiority of the American way of life, and simultaneously undermine the Soviet regime.

Buy the book

Winning Women’s Hearts and Minds: Selling Cold War Culture in the US and the USSR
by Diana Cucuz
University of Toronto Press