WHM: Personal Accounts Exercise Question 5 - How do personal accounts function in a larger context?
In the half century after World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States engaged in a Cold War struggle over spheres of influence and political and economic ideologies. While U.S. hostility to the Soviet Union dominated American foreign policy from the 1950s to 1980s, the experience of Americans at home shifted significantly during that time.
The 1960s and early 1970s were a period of intense social conflict involving struggles over civil rights, womens rights, and the nations involvement in Vietnam. Thus, when Gulag Archipelago was published in 1974, American reviews of the book were likely to respond to it within both of these contexts.