I was very interested by the picture Medovoi painted of the conflicted nature of American culture in the 1950s Cold War era, particularly the way in which the new suburbam lifestyle was both idealized as the epitome of the 'Democractic lifestyle' and simultaneously scorned for 'domesticating' the men. We're so often sold on the idea of the 'American Dream', and at other times harshly warned away from it, that I'd never really considered that the dream itself might have been fragmented in such a way from the very beginning.

Another point Medovoi makes is how the Cold War was only, in a way, superficially about containment and spheres of influence, whereas the actual 'battles' were fought on ideological grounds. Considering this together with the previous concept, it starts to make some more sense -- the American Dream was just as much a product of the 1950s society as cars or soap, and it didn't matter so much whether the ideology behind it was coherent as long as it was convincing.

Similarly, the 'identity' with which Medovoi is primarily concerned is also rather blatantly just another product -- those who stood to benefit from it hoped to make others 'buy in' to their concept of identity, whether it be race, gender, sexuality. This can even be viewed in terms of brand consciousness, where part of the goal was to make sure that the wrong people (the outcasts of the outcast) did not buy into a particular identity in order to keep the purity of the identity from being watered-down.