Lecture | CHEI Seminar
Not Rifles but Books: FEC’s Book Programs (1954–1991)
- Date
- Thursday 18 September 2025
- Time
- Serie
- Centre for the History of European Integration Seminar Series
- Address
-
Johan Huizinga
Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL Leiden - Room
- Conference room (2.60)
Synopsis
Between 1954 and 1991, the Free Europe Committee (FEC) ran extensive book distribution programs aimed at sending censored and unpublished materials from the West into the Eastern bloc. These efforts—spanning balloon drops, mailing campaigns, and person-to-person transfers—formed a vast cultural network that used books as instruments of soft power. Drawing on reports from the Hoover Institution and OSA Archives, this seminar will explore the political aims, target audiences, and circulation networks behind FEC’s operations. Dr Sicari will also demonstrate how digital tools can be used to map and analyze these transnational flows, offering new insight into the cultural history of the Cold War.
Biography
Ilaria Sicari is a post-doc Marie Skłodowska-Curie research fellow based at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice with the project “Transnational Book Diplomacy in the Cultural Cold War: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of Tamizdat”. She is visiting scholar at Leiden University College where she is analysing book diplomacy from a historical, socio-cultural and political perspective.
Centre for the History of European Integration (CHEI)
The seminars of Centre for the History of European Integration (CHEI) bring together scholars working on European integration, broadly conceived, from a historical perspective. Those interested in the work of the CHEI and in participating in the Centre’s activities are very welcome to contact Matthew Broad, the Coordinator of the CHEI, for more details.