A war between two worlds
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"Americans wound down Halloween 1938 gathered around their radios to hear Orson Welles read a rendition of War of the Worlds. Far from them snuggling up for a comfortable evening by the hearth, the broadcast sent a ripple of fear gliding across the nation. In the ensuing mania, America revealed its anxiety about the impending loss of its tranquil isolation, and Americans expressed their fears through the monster, the alien attackers in this case. Once awoken from its slumber, the Great Power status of the United States would lay responsibilities at Americans’ doorsteps, and the ever-growing ruckus the world produced made another century of rest impossible for them. The energy released by Welles’ transmission is not especial in America’s history. Instead, it is one of the best lenses into the cultural foundation of the twentieth-century American ascension to global hegemony, a history with which the events of Halloween 1938 cohesively align. The two sections of American history, isolation followed by involvement, were split by the broadcast, and American anxiety about that foreign policy transition from peace to intervention shined through their maniac acceptance of alien invaders." -- first page
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