Pulp empire

In the 1940s and '50s, comic books were some of the most popular - and most unfiltered - entertainment in the United States. Publishers sold hundreds of millions of copies a year of violent, racist, and luridly sexual comics to Americans of all ages, until a 1954 Senate investigation spearheaded by psychiatrist Fredric Wertham led to the adoption of a censorship code that nearly destroyed the industry. But this was far from the first time the US government actively involved itself with comics. In this book, Paul S. Hirsch uncovers the gripping untold story of how the US government both attacked and appropriated comic books to help wage World War II and the Cold War, promote official - and clandestine - foreign policy, and deflect global critiques of American racism.