Introduction

There is transnationalism all around us if you know where to look. The connections and flows of ideas, peoples, and institutions can occur in the most unexpected circumstances. For instance, in the 1930s, amid a worsening economic and political situation, western women’s groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Asian economists, and intellectuals were all united in a concern about the effects of global overpopulation. Even Gandhi, a keen follower of the subject, corresponded with the technocrats who made up the expert and specialized committees of the League of Nations. Similarly, two decades later, before Cold War realities set in, the Women’s International Democratic Federation brought together organizations from either side of the iron curtain when it was established in 1945. And while the 1950 Stockholm Peace Appeal was organized by the Soviet-backed World Peace Council, the fact that it could also obtain 204 million signatures from China, just one year after Mao came to power, attests to a global concern about nuclear weapons that cut across the usual borders. Likewise, Cold War polarities should not blind us to the blurring of divisions between communism and capitalism. In 1957, for instance, representatives from the world’s socialist economies converged on Prague to discuss the role and function of advertising. That the ascetic, productivist bias of communism might rule out the scope for such dialogue did not deter the delegates who met to consider the appropriate styles of advertising within socialist economies.