This volume explores how the Cultural Cold War played out in Africa and Asia in the context of decolonization. Both the USA and the Soviet Union as well as East European states undertook significant efforts to influence cultural life in the newly independent, postcolonial world.

Christopher B. Balme is professor of Theatre Studies and a director of the Käte Hamburger Research Centre global:disconnect at LMU Munich, Munich, Germany.

1. Introduction 2. Aesthetic World-Systems: Mythologies of Modernism and Realism Part 1: Networks and Institutions 3. Cold War Mobilities: Eastern European Theatre Going Global 4. Theatre for Influence: American Cultural and Philanthropic Missions in West Africa During the Early Cold War Part 2: Cultural Diplomacy 5. "Propaganda Was Almost Nil"?: Soviet Books and Publishing in India in the 1960s 6. Indo-Soviet Circus Exchanges During the Cold War: State Propaganda or a People's Art Form? Part 3: Artists and Agency 7. Narratives of Education and Migration: From La Noire de... (1966) to Octobre (1993) 8. Brecht as a Tool for Cultural Development: East German ITI Events for Theatre Artists from the "Third World" 9. "Clean Tablets to Write Upon": Ibsen's Brand in Riga and Moscow in the 1970s Part 4: Cultures of Things 10. Soviet Books, Geopolitical Imagination and Eclectic Solidarities in India 11. National Theatres in Africa Between Modular Modernity and Cultural Heritage