Cold War Modernists

Pub Appointment: February 2015

ISBN: 9780231162302

336 Pages

Format: Hardcover

List Price: $55.00 £44.00

Pub Date: February 2015

ISBN: 9780231538626

336 Pages

Format: E-book

List Cost: $54.99 £44.00

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European intellectuals of the 1950s dismissed American culture as nada more than cowboy movies and the A-bomb. In response, American cultural diplomats tried to show that the United States had something to offer beyond military might and commercial exploitation. Through literary magazines, traveling art exhibits, touring musical shows, radio programs, book translations, and conferences, they deployed the revolutionary aesthetics of modernism to prove—particularly to the leftists whose Cold State of war loyalties they hoped to secure—that American art and literature were aesthetically rich and culturally significant.

Nonetheless by repurposing modernism, American diplomats and cultural government turned the advanced into the institution. They remade the once revolutionary motion into a content-free collection of creative techniques and styles suitable for middlebrow consumption. Cold War Modernists documents how the CIA, the State Department, and individual cultural diplomats transformed modernist art and literature into pro-Western propaganda during the kickoff decade of the Cold State of war. Cartoon on interviews, previously unknown archival materials, and the stories of such figures and institutions as William Faulkner, Stephen Spender, Irving Kristol, James Laughlin, and Voice of America, Barnhisel reveals how the U.South. government reconfigured modernism as a trans-Atlantic movement, a articulation attempt betwixt American and European artists, with profound implications for the art that followed and for the graphic symbol of American identity.

This is a thoroughly excellent book, a magnum opus of genuine scholarship, and a genuine delight for readers. Lawrence Rainey, University of York
This book fills a long-felt need for a scholarly work on the importance of U.Due south. cultural exchange with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during the Cold War. Yale Richmond, Strange Service Officeholder, retired, and former Counselor for Press and Culture in the American Embassy in Moscow
Conceptually sophisticated, thoroughly researched, and lucidly written, Greg Barnhisel's important new report combines an assured grasp of historical context with sensitive readings of artworks and literary texts to illuminate previously obscure aspects of the 'Cultural Common cold War.' Hugh Wilford, author of The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America and America'south Great Game: The CIA's Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle Due east.
Deftly working across genres, Barnhisel mobilizes rich archival sources to testify not simply the accommodation of modernism to anti-Communism but also the entanglement of the highbrow and the middlebrow. In that mode, this lively, fascinating book contributes to the histories of both cultural diplomacy and cultural hierarchy. Joan Shelley Rubin, writer of Cultural Considerations: Essays on Readers, Writers, and Musicians in Postwar America
[A] groundbreaking book. Steve Donoghue, Open up Letters Monthly
Making good employ of archival sources, Mr. Barnhisel provides an engaging and informative survey. Glenn Altschuler, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Common cold War Modernists makes a valuable addition to the grown literature on the cultural aspects of the Cold War. Thoroughly researched and written in a meaty and readable style, it is a work that sets itself a feasible task and accomplishes it. Souciant
An exquisite, intricate, and satisfying study.... Essential. Option
A welcome addition to the scholarship on modernism after the Second World War. Lise Jaillant, Textual Exercise
An important source for scholars and students of Cold War culture.... Thorough and illuminating, offering a rich new account of a story we thought to exist familiar. Will Norman, The Review of English Studies
Greg Barnhisel'southward Cold War Modernists charts impeccably the transformation of twentieth-century modernism from abrasive (European) avant-garde to a stylistic iconography of Western (American) liberty.... It is 1 of those commendable books that invites y'all to revisit what has already been said and makes you realize that the established story, upwardly till at present, was lacking. Giles Scott-Smith, Diplomatic History
Barnhisel's book will rightly become the get-to reference for critics and historians of the Cultural Common cold War.... Common cold State of war Modernists focus on the arts-next institutions that filter literary and artistic value provides a new way to think nigh how and why modernism has had such a lasting legacy in the 20th century. Donal Harris, Los Angeles Review of Books
Coherently organized, superbly researched, and judiciously balanced. Stephen J. Whitfield, Journal of Cold War Studies
An important source for scholars and students of Cold War civilization. The business relationship information technology offers of cultural affairs in the Truman and Eisenhower years is both thorough and illuminating, offering a rich new account of a story we thought to exist familiar. Will Norman, Review of English Studies
Barnhisel'south book has a good deal to teach historians of the Common cold War located exterior art and literature departments.... He sifts through dozens of unpublished primary sources and writes with narrative drive equally well equally learned, enlivening wit. William J. Maxwell, Journal of American History
The greatest merits of this work are its g scope, clear argument, and impressive archival research; the writing is crisp, witty, and accessible.... [An] outstanding book.... [Cold War Modernists] deserves broad readership. At that place is no denying that Barnhisel has contributed to our collective agreement of modernism and its part in Cold War cultural diplomacy. Andrew J. Falk, The American Historical Review
Elegant and richly researched Against the Electric current
A refreshing contribution to scholarship on the and then-called cultural Common cold State of war.... Cold State of war Modernists displays a literary critic's sensitivity to rhetorical nuance combined with an intellectual historian'south grasp of cultural, social and political contexts. Information technology is written with mode, assurance and at times with wit. Jason Harding, Literature & History
[Common cold War Modernists] is an impressive achievement, based on extensive archival research, a close reading of the most important secondary literature, and some key interviews. Dr. John H. Chocolate-brown, American Diplomacy
In Cold War Modernists, Greg Barnhisel has contributed generously and decisively to midcentury cultural and political history, to the story of modernism'south afterlife, and to our capacity to understand how that afterlife includes us nevertheless. Kamran Javadizadeh, Modernism/modernity
This is a well-researched volume with appropriate illustrations and an excellent selection of notes. It is a much needed add-on to the growing works on US cultural diplomacy and volition accept particular entreatment to pop culture scholars in art, literature, and the performing arts. Journal of American Civilisation

Abbreviations and Note on Unpublished Sources
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Freedom, Individualism, Modernism
2. "Advancing American Fine art": Modernist Painting and Public–Private Partnerships
3. Cold Warriors of the Volume: American Volume Programs in the 1950s
4. Run into Magazine and the Twilight of Modernism
five. Perspectives U.s. and the Economics of Cold War Modernism
6. American Modernism in American Dissemination: The Vocalization of (Middlebrow) America
Conclusion
Notes
Index

  • Read Greg Barnhisel's essay "Put Someone in Charge of His Liquor" and Other Strange-Service Rules for Handling William Faulkner on Slate
  • Mind to an interview with the author on the New Books Network
  • Read a review in the Los Angeles Review of Books
  • Read a review in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
  • Fine art Confronting Communism: read a review in Souciant
  • Read a review in American Historical Review

Winner, 2017 Choice Outstanding Academic Title

About the Author

Greg Barnhisel teaches in the English section at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. His previous books include James Laughlin, New Directions, and the Remaking of Ezra Pound and, with Catherine Turner, Pressing the Fight: Print, Propaganda, and the Cold War.