Upstaging the Cold War
280 pages, 6 x 9
Paperback
Release Date:07 Jul 2011
ISBN:9781558499034
Upstaging the Cold War
American Dissent and Cultural Diplomacy, 1940-1960
University of Massachusetts Press
Traditional interpretations of the 1950s have emphasized how American anti-communists deployed censorship and the blacklist to silence dissent, particularly in the realm of foreign policy. Yet those efforts at repression did not always succeed. Throughout the early years of the Cold War, a significant number of writers and performers continued to express controversial views about international relations in Hollywood films, through the new medium of television, on the Broadway stage, and from behind the scenes.
By promoting superpower cooperation, decolonization, nuclear disarmament, and other taboo causes, dissident artists such as Lillian Hellman, Arthur Miller, Rod Serling, Dalton Trumbo, Reginald Rose, and Paddy Chayefsky managed both to stretch the boundaries of Cold War ideology and to undermine some of its basic assumptions. Working at times under assumed names and in some cases outside the United States, they took on the role of informal diplomats who competed with Washington in representing America to the world.
Ironically, the dissidents' international appeal eventually persuaded the U.S. foreign policy establishment that their unconventional views could be an asset in the Cold War contest for "hearts and minds," and their artistic work an effective means to sell American values and culture abroad. By the end of the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration not only appropriated the work of these talented artists but enlisted some of them to serve as official voices of Cold War cultural diplomacy.
By promoting superpower cooperation, decolonization, nuclear disarmament, and other taboo causes, dissident artists such as Lillian Hellman, Arthur Miller, Rod Serling, Dalton Trumbo, Reginald Rose, and Paddy Chayefsky managed both to stretch the boundaries of Cold War ideology and to undermine some of its basic assumptions. Working at times under assumed names and in some cases outside the United States, they took on the role of informal diplomats who competed with Washington in representing America to the world.
Ironically, the dissidents' international appeal eventually persuaded the U.S. foreign policy establishment that their unconventional views could be an asset in the Cold War contest for "hearts and minds," and their artistic work an effective means to sell American values and culture abroad. By the end of the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration not only appropriated the work of these talented artists but enlisted some of them to serve as official voices of Cold War cultural diplomacy.
For me, the most striking virtue of Andrew Falk's book is its ability to document and historicize cultural dissent over a significant and greatly changing two-decade period in ways that make these expressions of political criticism more central to mainstream politics than I had ever imagined. . . . The writing is impressive—lucid, accessible, and engaging.'—Christian G. Appy, author of Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides
'Falk takes a decidedly different approach toward the Cold War in a long overdue examination of the post-WWII dissent in the U.S. and its relationship to U.S. foreign policy. . . . A welcome addition built around excellent research. . . . Highly recommended.'—Choice
'Offers a fascinating new window onto the early Cold War that goes far beyond the relatively familiar old stories of the Hollywood hearings and blacklists. . . . It is exceptionally well written and deeply researched, showing a deft blend of political history and the history of arts and ideas.'—Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize Committee
'Upstaging the Cold War presents an intriguing thesis, one with which specialists on the Red Scare and its geopolitical implications must reckon.'—Journal of Cold War Studies
'The distinctiveness of Andrew Falk's fine book, Upstaging the Cold War: American Dissent and Cultural Diplomacy, 1940-1960, is that he has gathered a vast body of original research to show that a battle over national identity informed the anticommunist crusade in Hollywood in the postwar era.'—Lary May, The Journal of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Diplomatic History
'This study--nicely illustrated with photographs and political cartoons--is the latest in one of the better series on modern American history. . . . Falk successfully highlights ongoing progressive resistance to Cold War orthodoxy on Broadway and in Hollywood.'—Journal of American History
'A dynamic book . . . A fabulous tale of cultural dissent, elegantly written, sharply analyzed, and forcefully told, that meshes well with the recent literature on media politics and will become required reading for students of sociopolitical conflict in the Cold War.'—American Historical Review
Andrew J. Falk is assistant professor of history at Christopher Newport University.
