Walter L. Hixson is the History Department at the University of Akron. His books include Parting the Curtain: Propaganda, Culture and the Cold War, 1945-1961, St. Martin's Press, 1997 and George F. Kennan, Cold War Iconoclast, Columbia University Press, 1989, (Contemporary American History Series) for which he received the Bernath Prize given annually by the Society of Historials of American Foreign Relations. He has also authored numerous scholarly articles and essays.