Shane Hamilton
Appearances
Freakonomics Radio
How the Supermarket Helped America Win the Cold War (Update)
After Sputnik, when the United States was trying to understand why it was falling behind in the space race, or why it thought it was falling behind in the space race, many of the commentators said, the problem is we're not funding basic research.
Freakonomics Radio
How the Supermarket Helped America Win the Cold War (Update)
So after 1957, the budgets of not only organizations like the National Science Foundation, but also specific government departments like the Department of Agriculture, their budgets for research increased dramatically. on the theory that this is how the United States would win the Cold War, by doing the best science.
Freakonomics Radio
How the Supermarket Helped America Win the Cold War (Update)
I'm a writer, editor, and historian.
Freakonomics Radio
How the Supermarket Helped America Win the Cold War (Update)
And it really looks at the ways that science as an idea became a tool for propaganda in the Cold War, especially on the American side. There's this idea that you can change hearts and minds and you can establish a climate of opinion that makes people more willing to accept the American way of life as the better choice.
Freakonomics Radio
How the Supermarket Helped America Win the Cold War (Update)
things like chicken breeding and hybrid corn, took an outsized and somewhat surprising role in U.S. propaganda in the early 1950s.
Freakonomics Radio
How the Supermarket Helped America Win the Cold War (Update)
The United States wanted to promote personal exchanges, scientific and technical exchanges, as a way to promote American values. But at the same time, it was very, very nervous that by doing so, it would lose the advantages that it had, particularly in grain production.
Freakonomics Radio
How the Supermarket Helped America Win the Cold War (Update)
A newspaper editor in Iowa named Lauren Soth invited Khrushchev to the United States to see the wonders of American agriculture.
Freakonomics Radio
How the Supermarket Helped America Win the Cold War (Update)
And somewhat to everyone's shock, Khrushchev said yes. Now, Khrushchev didn't come himself until 1959. But in 1955, a group of 12 Soviet agricultural experts came to the United States to see the wonders of American agriculture. They saw how contour farming worked. They saw the wonders of hybrid corn. They saw the chicken breeders.
Freakonomics Radio
How the Supermarket Helped America Win the Cold War (Update)
Things like chicken breeding and hybrid corn took a outsized and somewhat surprising role in U.S. propaganda in the early 1950s. The farms race had an obvious winner.