This book reveals how the U.S. government reconfigured modernism as a trans-Atlantic movement, a joint endeavor between American and European artists, and shows that this had profound implications for the art that followed and for the character of American identity. It draws on interviews, rare archival materials, and the stories of such figures and institutions as William Faulkner, Stephen Spender, Irving Kristol, James Laughlin, and the Voice of America. The book starts by showing how European intellectuals in the 1950s dismissed American culture as nothing more than cowboy movies and the A- ... More

This book reveals how the U.S. government reconfigured modernism as a trans-Atlantic movement, a joint endeavor between American and European artists, and shows that this had profound implications for the art that followed and for the character of American identity. It draws on interviews, rare archival materials, and the stories of such figures and institutions as William Faulkner, Stephen Spender, Irving Kristol, James Laughlin, and the Voice of America. The book starts by showing how European intellectuals in the 1950s dismissed American culture as nothing more than cowboy movies and the A-bomb. It then details how American cultural diplomats tried to show that the United States had something to offer beyond military might and commercial exploitation. It shows how they deployed the revolutionary aesthetics of modernism to prove—particularly to the leftists whose Cold War loyalties they hoped to secure—that American art and literature were aesthetically rich and culturally significant. The book argues that, by repurposing modernism, American diplomats and cultural authorities turned the avant-garde into the establishment. It shows how they remade the once revolutionary movement into a content-free collection of artistic techniques and styles suitable for middlebrow consumption. It also documents how the CIA, the State Department, and private cultural diplomats transformed modernist art and literature into pro-Western propaganda during the first decade of the Cold War.