You know all that paranoia that besides politics and economics, the CIA also has infiltrated all kinds of cultural institutions -- academic journals, music, international academic conferences, popular journals, export of popular music? Well now your paranoia can be exorcised, because it is all true! ...more
WITH "FREEDOM" FIGHTERS LIKE THESE WHO NEEDS TOTALITARIANS?
A fine, readable book on the CIA programme to fund allegedly leftist/high cultural movements during the first half of the so called cold war. The cast of characters are a fairly unlikeable bunch - examples Nicholas Nabokov (3rd rate compose ...more
عرّابة مثقفين وافاع ثقافية لاذعه وكراكيز فكرية تجيد فن الكذب والخداع ولا يظهر عليها انها تفعل شيئاً تظن انها تتصرف بحرية ووفق ارادتها وبالواقع مكبلون مقيدون بقوى لا سيطرة هم عليها فما يهم ان ترفض كل شيء وتكذبه او ان تندفع عليه او تبقى مراقباً؟! ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ مثلما للطبيخ نفس وللطع ...more
ميزة الكتاب الكبرى أنه جاء في شكل دراسة ليمنع سخافات أصحاب نظرية (النوايا البيضاء) و (العالم اللطيف لا مؤامرات فيه) من الظهور .. هذه دراسة عميقة موثقة بدقة و لا مجال فيها للمزاح .. ترجمة لطيفة و أسلوب لطيف في الكتابة يعوض مشكلة كبر حجم الكتاب .. و هذه أهم النقاط التي لاحظتها بجوار الفكرة العامة للكتا ...more
It's gonna take me a while to fully process this, but the practical bottom line comes down to the following.
1) The scale of CIA intervention in "soft" politics is vast. Unlike what spy movies would have us believe, and as attested to by such converts as Phil Agee, an Agent's job is quite bureaucrati ...more
It could hardly surprise anyone at this point, except in the details, but the CIA had a hand in all kinds of cultural enterprises during the 1950s and 1960s. The premise was simple: let's combat totalitarian, non-democratic art by controlling our own art non-democratically and totalitarianally. Emph ...more
đọc cuốn sách này để tìm hiểu về chuyện Orwell đã được CIA tuyên truyền như nào trong thời kỳ chiến tranh lạnh. ngoài cuốn này còn có một cuốn chuyên viết về bác sĩ Zhivago và sự ra đời bản dịch cũng như bản tiếng Nga ở ngoài Nga như thế nào.
Đều là những cuốn sách cực hay và nên đọc cho ai muốn tìm ...more
تحفة بحثية قدمتها لنا الشابة البريطانية فرانسيس ستونر قبل تسع سنوات، كانت جديرة بالضجة التي قرعت رأس الغرب صحيح ان هذه المسألة لم تكن ذات وقع مؤثر في مواجهة الاعلام الموجه، خصوصا وانها تحكي عن تاريخ قد مضى في توجيه الرأي العام ومنهجة قناعاته بالفن والثقافة والسياسة،لكنها تركت اثرا يستدل به في عصر الح ...more
توثيق لطيف...لا يسعك في النهاية إلا أن تشجع اللعب الحلو
أمريكا تجاهد بالمعنى الحرفي للكلمة تضحي بالأموال والأنفس والعقول...وتستنفذ الجهد في إخراج الناس من النور إلى الظلمات، ومن عبادة رب العباد إلى عبادة العباد، ومن سعة الدنيا والآخرة إلى ضيق الدنيا ومن الأحلام بالجنة والفردوس إلى الحلم الأمريكي. خص ...more
This book is written for an audience that already knows something about the Cold War and US politics in the 1950s, and for me it was an uphill climb since I know little about this period in American history. Fortunately Saunders is a good writer and manages to make most of it fairly interesting, alt ...more
this is a pretty cool book how the cia funded left wing groups, artists, thinkers, philsophers etc. as a way to combat communism. cool. sort of name heavy sometimes which i s a bit annoying but whatever man. now next time your talking to all your cool friends down @the mission district you can tell ...more
I finished it a while back, but I'm trying to enter some old finished books on here to start actually participating on this website, and this is the first one I think I marked as reading. It's great. I think part of the thrill is just the neverending stream of famous names and the exclusive gossip y ...more
Someone once said that beneath or behind all political and cultural warfare lies a struggle between secret societies. —Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo (1972)
This 1999 book by British journalist Saunders is the classic account of the CIA's semi-secret mid-20th-century sponsorship of cultural organizatio ...more
Essential non-fiction. Everyone should read this book to get a deeper (shocking!) understanding of the Cold War. Who knew Jackson Pollack's ab-ex paintings were tools of the CIA to stop the spread of Communism!! The only negative effect of reading this book is coming away with the feeling that the C ...more
This is the second time I have read this book. I read it first when it came out and as I remember it, was somewhat disappointed by the lack of deeper comment on the promotion of American Abstract Expressionism throughout the world. As we all know now, this was very much funded by the CIA and the Ame ...more
If you ever had doubts the CIA would meddle with any part of society in a relentless unbridled self-absorbed hunt to stamp out communism at any-and-all costs: well, this book should convince you. Otherwise, please grab your plush McCarthy-bear and go back to watching the Doomsday clock on Fox News. ...more
A very thorough account of the Congress for Cultural Freedom and the CIA's attempts ot channel money into various European and American thinkers to create a viable liberal/capitalist alternative to socialism/communism. Mostly interesting except that the real historical events are of the 'then he sai ...more
من دفع للمزمار من كتب الوثائقية يتحدث عن رأسماليه الأميريكية و شيوعية و صراعها في ربوع أروبا بإستخدام الحرب البارده الثقافية و غزو الثقافي للموسيقي و أدب و مسرح و فكر و عادات و .... بإستخدام وحدات إستخباراتيه و مؤساسات غير مسجل و غير محددة الدعم المالي ليكون لهم الستار الكامل و حرية مطلقة للتصرف و تل ...more
If you want to know what the CIA has been doing since if was formed in 1946 and HOW it controls ALL of the media in the world, you must read this thoroughly documented, non-fiction book. If you haven't read this book, you really can not understand the what American think is "reality". Everything you ...more