Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Clancy, Tom - Walter L. Hixson (essay date Fall 1993)

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Walter L. Hixson (essay date Fall 1993)

SOURCE: "Red Storm Rising: Tom Clancy Novels and the Cult of National Security," in Diplomatic History, Vol. 17, No. 4, Fall, 1993, pp. 599-613.

[In the following essay, Hixson examines the cultural significance of American jingoism and the glorification of advanced weaponry in The Hunt for Red October, Red Storm Rising, and The Cardinal of the Kremlin. According to Hixson, Clancy's novels "can be interpreted as popular representations of Reagan-era Cold War values."]

They're not just novels. They're read as the real thing.

   —Former Vice President Dan Quayle on Tom Clancy's novels

Prominent midcentury American social critics Dwight MacDonald and Clement Greenberg, inspired in part by Frankfurt school intellectuals, decried the growing influence of the mass media and popular culture on postindustrial society. They asserted...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Walter Isaacson (review date 11 August 1986)
   2. Anthony Hyde (review date 26 July 1987)
   3. Ross Thomas (review date 2 August 1987)
   4. Robert Lekachman (review date 31 July 1988)
   5. Ross Thomas (review date 13 August 1989)
   6. David Wise (review date 13 August 1989)
   7. Elliott Abrams (review date 16 August 1989)
   8. Morton Kondracke (review date 28 July 1991)
   9. Bob Shacochis (review date 4 August 1991)
   10. Louis Menand (review date 16 September 1991)
   11. William F. Ryan (essay date Winter 1993)
   12. G. Gordon Liddy (review date 22 August 1993)
   13. Walter L. Hixson (essay date Fall 1993)
   14. John Calvin Batchelor (review date 21 August 1994)
   15. John Lehman (review date 2 September 1994)
   16. Christopher Buckley (review date 2 October 1994)
   17. Michael R. Beschloss (review date 18 August 1996)
   18. Paul Dean (review date 25 August 1996)
   19. Christopher Hitchens (review date 14 November 1996)
   20. Helen S. Garson (essay date 1996)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. Tom Clancy