Includes bibliographical references and index.

The Iron Curtain as semipermeable membrane: origins and demise of the Stalinist superiority complex / Michael David-Fox -- The taste of red watermelon: Polish peasants visit Soviet collective farms, 1949-1952 / Patryk Babiracki -- The Western wall: the Iron Curtain recast in midsummer 1951 / Nick Rutter -- Socialist encounters: Albania and the transnational Eastern Bloc in the 1950s / Elidor Mëhilli -- The Soviet-South encounter: tensions in the friendship with Afro-Asian partners, 1945-1965 / Constantin Katsakioris -- Meeting at a far meridian: American-Soviet cultural diplomacy on film in the early Cold War / Marsha Siefert.