Truman State University Press Livres

The Lions' Gate introduces English readers to a crucial voice in world poetry. Titos Patrikios is a poet of witness and engagement. A member of the intellectual left in post-war Greece, he survived imprisonment, hard labor, censorship, and exile. He narrowly escaped death by firing squad, and once had to bury his poems to keep them from discovery by the authorities. Patrikios endured years away from his home country, Greece, and was displaced from his family and literary community. His style bears the marks of that pressure and of his persistent need to pursue what might suffice in spite of such predicaments. At times reminiscent of Hikmet, Neruda, and Milosz, Patrikios's poems sound a note of defiant celebration. This poet's ethos is utterly humanistic and his impulses are toward praise as often as they are toward protest.

The Cold War profoundly transformed American society, perhaps most significantly through the development of national security institutions that are very much alive more than two decades after the end of the Cold War. This volume explores the great divide between those in the Truman administration who defended tradition and those who spoke for the new ideology of national security. In a highly charged political environment that pitted not only Republican against Democrat, but also civilian authority against military authority and the legislative branch against the executive, Americans struggled to adapt to a new world order while retaining ideals of freedom and individuality. At issue were basic questions about the nation's post-war purpose and political identity, the role of the military in civilian life, and even the rights of the individual versus the rights of the state.