Szabolcs László, "Cold War Brokers: Hungarian-American Cultural Exchanges and Transnational Mobility,1956-1989" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Szabolcs László, "Cold War Brokers: Hungarian-American Cultural Exchanges and Transnational Mobility,1956-1989" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

From New Books in Diplomatic History by New Books Network

May 4, 2026 · 57 min · Episode 25

About this episode

Szabolcs László discusses his book on Hungarian-American cultural exchanges during the Cold War.

In this episode of the CEU Review of Books Podcast, I sat down with Szabolcs László to talk about his new book, Cold War Brokers: Hungarian-American Cultural Exchanges and Transnational Mobility, 1956-1989 (Bloomsbury, 2026). We discussed how during the Cold War Hungarian writers, intellectuals, and academics took part in various programmes that allowed them to spend time in the United States of America, to build networks with their western counterparts, and how grassroots effort helped in spreading Hungarian know-how, such as the Kodály method, to the US and various other parts of the world. You can purchase the book from Bloomsbury here. You can read more about Szabolcs’s research on the Kodály method in his Open Access article here. You can also watch a short video here (in Hungarian) about the Kodály method here. The CEU Review of Books Podcast Series explores the questions that affect us all through in-depth talks with researchers, policy makers, journalists, academics and others. We showcase the most current research linked to Central Europe through these discussions. At the CEU Review of Books, we encourage an open discussion that challenges conventional assumptions to…

People in this episode

Host: CEU Review of Books Podcast

Guest: Szabolcs László

Topics covered

  • Cold War
  • Cultural Exchanges
  • Transnational Mobility
  • Hungarian-American Relations
  • Academic Networks

Keywords

  • Cold War
  • Hungarian-American
  • Cultural Exchanges
  • Transnational Mobility
  • Kodály method

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Bloomsbury, Kodály method

Books & works: Cold War Brokers: Hungarian-American Cultural Exchanges and Transnational Mobility, 1956-1989

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