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Tracy C. Davis's highly original cross-cultural study represents the most perceptive analysis of Cold War-era civil-defense theory and practice written to date. As a theater scholar, she focuses on the 'rehearsal' and performative aspects of civil-defense planning in a way that is brilliantly illuminating. --Paul Boyer, author of By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age Tracy C. Davis is a leading performance historian, and in Stages of Emergency she applies her considerable skills to a kind of 'play' that permeated the consciousness and determined much social reality in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom during the Cold War. The story she tells, and her analysis of it, goes to the very heart of what these societies were and are. --Richard Schechner, author of Performance Studies: An Introduction

[An] inspired reading of the cold war... The historical reach of Davis's study, from the defense planning f the early 1950s and 1960s to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, is as impressive as her ability to move with subtlety between civil defense in the United States and that in Canada or Britain. -- Martin Halliwell, Theatre Survey Davis presents meticulous discussions throughout the book, with extremely well-endnoted references, helping her to paint clear and in-depth pictures of these various exercises. These stories are surprisingly amusing to read, despite the seriousness of their underlying logic. -- Joshua Abrams, The Drama Review The most impressive aspect of Davis's methodology is her ability to use extensive archival research to draw out the differences between the three nations' approaches to civil defense based on economic factors... Stages of Emergency is an important and accessible book for any scholar interested in the Cold War or the performance of politics. Tracy C. Davis's exciting new text marks a significant departure from her previously published work, opening up new possibilities for the ways that performance studies can be transferred from the stage to all aspects of life. -- Noe W. Montez, New England Theatre Journal Tracy C. Davis is a leading performance historian, and in Stages of Emergency she applies her considerable skills to a kind of 'play' that permeated the consciousness and determined much social reality in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom during the Cold War. The story she tells, and her analysis of it, goes to the very heart of what these societies were and are. -Richard Schechner, author of Performance Studies: An Introduction Tracy C. Davis's highly original cross-cultural study represents the most perceptive analysis of Cold War-era civil-defense theory and practice written to date. As a theater scholar, she focuses on the 'rehearsal' and performative aspects of civil-defense planning in a way that is brilliantly illuminating. -Paul Boyer, author of By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age

"""Tracy C. Davis's highly original cross-cultural study represents the most perceptive analysis of Cold War-era civil-defense theory and practice written to date. As a theater scholar, she focuses on the 'rehearsal' and performative aspects of civil-defense planning in a way that is brilliantly illuminating.""--Paul Boyer, author of By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age ""Tracy C. Davis is a leading performance historian, and in Stages of Emergency she applies her considerable skills to a kind of 'play' that permeated the consciousness and determined much social reality in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom during the Cold War. The story she tells, and her analysis of it, goes to the very heart of what these societies were and are.""--Richard Schechner, author of Performance Studies: An Introduction"

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Tracy C. Davis is Barber Professor of Performing Arts and Professor of English and Theatre at Northwestern University. She is the author of The Economics of the British Stage 1800–1914; George Bernard Shaw and the Socialist Theatre; and Actresses as Working Women: Their Social Identity in Victorian Culture.

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