VIDEO: The Cold War Is Over But Hollywood Still Loves Its Russian Villains

From Indiana Jones to The Americans, We Can’t Resist A Soviet Foil

Good stories need a good villain, and for well over half a century, Russian commies and their surrogates have fared quite well at Hollywood casting calls. The diversity of Russian villains over time, as our short video makes clear, has been astonishing. Russian villains have been idealistic true believers, femme fatales, muscular soldiers, clever scientists, shady billionaires, and cartoon characters.

What’s more, as both Kati Marton and Jonathan Haslam write in this Inquiry, one of the more haunting aspects of the Russian menace was its ability to lure some …

September 26, 2016

L.A.’s Forgotten Avenue of the Athletes

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By David Davis | August 4, 2016

Walking along Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles the other day I stumbled across an old acquaintance. On a small bronze plaque embedded into the sidewalk was the name Jimmy …

With Free State of Jones, Hollywood’s Civil War Comes Closer to History’s

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Turning on the TV in Los Angeles in 1949, you might have come face-to-face with a young man in a jeweled turban with a dreamy gaze accentuated by dark eye …

The Sun Always Shines on the California Empire

The Golden State, Not the U.S., Is the Worthiest Successor to Britain’s Global Supremacy

By Joe Mathews | March 17, 2016

The sun has set on the British Empire. Its successor, America, is showing signs of decline. But one empire still has plenty of battery life: California.

This is true even …

No City Is Immune From an Identity Crisis

Beware, Hollywood and Silicon Valley: If Bakersfield Can Lose Its Signature Industry, So Can You

By Joe Mathews | February 25, 2016

Can you imagine Southern California without Hollywood? Or the Bay Area without Silicon Valley?

No? History suggests that the identities of cities and regions are more fragile, and their central industries …

What’s So Wrong About Californians Colluding With This Russian?

A River Reveals the Historical, Mystical Ties That Bind Our State to the Land of Putin and Tolstoy

When Alaskan and Russian Native People Thawed the Cold War’s ‘Ice Curtain’

Citizen-Diplomats on Both Sides of the Bering Strait Eased U.S.-Soviet Relations—and Could Help Confront Climate Change

How Literature Became a Weapon in Russia’s Culture Wars

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The Russian Empire, My Soviet Loyalist Grandfather, and Me

From Catherine the Great to Stalin, My Family Played a Part in Imperial Rule Over Ukraine—Until They Didn’t

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