Paul Hirsch's revelatory book opens the archives to show the complex relationships between comic books and American foreign relations in the mid-twentieth century. Scourged and repressed on the one hand, yet co-opted and deployed as propaganda on the other, violent, sexist comic books were both vital expressions of American freedom and upsetting depictions of the American id. Hirsch draws on previously classified material and newly available personal records to weave together the perspectives of government officials, comic-book publishers and creators, and people in other countries who found themselves on the receiving end of American culture.