Author Explores the Anxieties of 'Cold War Wisconsin'

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In some minds, the U.S. and Russia appear to be on the verge of a second Cold War, but for a growing number of Americans, knowledge of the first Cold War is increasingly scant. The Cold War, which ran from after the end of World War II through the collapse of the Soviet Union, continues to impact today’s landscape both here in Wisconsin and around the world. Cold War Wisconsin, a new book by Wisconsin author Christopher Sturdevant, takes readers behind the era’s espionage and propaganda campaigns to explain the war’s origins as well as its local impact in the Badger state.

The term “cold war” was coined by English writer George Orwell to refer to a world living in the shadow of nuclear war, and there are a surprising number of ways that Wisconsinites were at the center of the decades-long dispute. In Sturdevant’s book, he explores these local connections, highlighting some of the principal actors in the conflict, including Milwaukee native George Kennan, the Moscow-based diplomat who authored the containment policy that formed the basis of U.S. strategy against the Soviets; and Lana Peters, the daughter of Joseph Stalin, who spent her later years living in tiny Richland Center. This concise compendium also profiles the Kewaunee shipyards that built U.S. destroyers and uncovers the location of eight nuclear missile systems that were deployed in the Milwaukee area alone. Told through historical events and anecdotal stories, Cold War Wisconsin is an enlightening portrait of the wide-ranging legacy of Cold War policies both locally and around the world.

Sturdevant is a Milwaukee librarian and current chairman of the Midwest Chapter of the Cold War Museum. He will discuss Cold War Wisconsin at Boswell Book Company at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 30.