The CIA and the Art World: The Cultural Front of the Cold War
19.99 €
In stock
The CIA and the Art World: The Cultural Front of the Cold War
19.99 €
This book by British journalist and documentary filmmaker Frances Stonor Saunders presents for the first time shocking evidence of CIA manipulation of cultural policy during the Cold War. It is well known that the CIA financed and coordinated the activities of right-wing intellectuals and organizations. Less well known is that Langley actively recruited left-wingers to disengage American and Western European intellectuals from communist ideas and sway them toward the fight against the USSR. Communist views were sometimes tolerated—as long as they were anti-Soviet.
The CIA-created and overseen Congress for Cultural Freedom, with offices in 35 countries, was the primary mechanism and platform for this activity, which involved such renowned writers and philosophers as George Orwell, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Arthur Koestler. The Russian immigrant composer Nikolai Nabokov (the writer's cousin) served as the Secretary General of the Congress for Cultural Freedom. Thus, the CIA assumed the functions of the Ministry of Culture: the "new age of enlightenment" was to become the "American Century."
In an attempt to create an attractive "American culture" to counter Soviet and European culture, the American government secretly promoted a little-known art movement—Abstract Expressionism—which later grew into one of the most expensive movements on the market. Full of intrigue and betrayal, this scandalous story of the CIA's cultural subversion reads like a detective story.
The CIA-created and overseen Congress for Cultural Freedom, with offices in 35 countries, was the primary mechanism and platform for this activity, which involved such renowned writers and philosophers as George Orwell, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Arthur Koestler. The Russian immigrant composer Nikolai Nabokov (the writer's cousin) served as the Secretary General of the Congress for Cultural Freedom. Thus, the CIA assumed the functions of the Ministry of Culture: the "new age of enlightenment" was to become the "American Century."
In an attempt to create an attractive "American culture" to counter Soviet and European culture, the American government secretly promoted a little-known art movement—Abstract Expressionism—which later grew into one of the most expensive movements on the market. Full of intrigue and betrayal, this scandalous story of the CIA's cultural subversion reads like a detective story.
See also:
- All books by the publisher
- All books by the author
- All books in the series Real politics