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The Dancer Defects: The Struggle for Cultural Supremacy during the Cold War
The cultural Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West was without precedent. At the outset of this original and wide-ranging historical survey, David Caute establishes the nature of the extraordinary cultural competition set up post-1945 between Moscow, New York, London and Paris, with
the most intimate frontier war staged in the city of Berlin. Using sources in four languages, Caute explores the cultural Cold War as it rapidly penetrated theatre, film, classical music, popular music, ballet, painting and sculpture, as well as propaganda by exhibition. Artists such as Miller,
Picasso, Eisenstein, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky became involved in this fierce cultural competition through which each of the major Cold War protagonists sought to establish their supremacy. Caute challenges some recent, one-dimensional, American accounts of 'Cold War culture', which ignore not
only the Soviet performance but virtually any cultural activity outside the USA. The West presented its cultural avant-garde as evidence of liberty, even through monochrome canvases and dodecaphonic music appealed only to a minority audience. Soviet artistic standards and teaching levels were
exceptionally high, but the fear of freedom and innovation virtually guaranteed the moral defeat which accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union.
the most intimate frontier war staged in the city of Berlin. Using sources in four languages, Caute explores the cultural Cold War as it rapidly penetrated theatre, film, classical music, popular music, ballet, painting and sculpture, as well as propaganda by exhibition. Artists such as Miller,
Picasso, Eisenstein, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky became involved in this fierce cultural competition through which each of the major Cold War protagonists sought to establish their supremacy. Caute challenges some recent, one-dimensional, American accounts of 'Cold War culture', which ignore not
only the Soviet performance but virtually any cultural activity outside the USA. The West presented its cultural avant-garde as evidence of liberty, even through monochrome canvases and dodecaphonic music appealed only to a minority audience. Soviet artistic standards and teaching levels were
exceptionally high, but the fear of freedom and innovation virtually guaranteed the moral defeat which accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union.
818 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2003
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April 15, 2013
Cold War Porn.
The French have an expression, "drowning the fish," meaning you overwhelm your opponent with data in order to avoid actually answering his point. The Dancer Defects is meant to counter Frances Stonor Saunders's devastating "The Cultural Cold War," published in the UK as "Who Paid the Piper."
Unfortunately, Caute is of that breed of intellectuals whose political stance consists in being neither Right nor Left, but merely standing to the right of the Left and the left of the Right: he counters Saunders by accumulating factoids (fascinating factoids, I'll admit) that are meant to prove that either side in the Cold War was reaching for the lowest common denominator in their rush to use Culture for their own ends. His methodology is that not uncommon subgenre of historical research, the light-scholarly book that relies almost exclusively on press clippings. His stance: "Of course, Communists eat babies; on the other hand, MacCarthyism was bad, because some non-Communists were caught in the net." That there might have been a large number of writers, musicians, dancers, etc., that were caught between the two superpowers, is something Caute doesn't really consider, and that's unfortunate, since that was Saunders' most devastating point.
I'd give Caute an extra star for the factoids (728 pages, including notes), except that after following up on a few footnotes I found that he frequently misquoted or misunderstood his sources. This is not a book, it's a poorly annotated bibliography.
The French have an expression, "drowning the fish," meaning you overwhelm your opponent with data in order to avoid actually answering his point. The Dancer Defects is meant to counter Frances Stonor Saunders's devastating "The Cultural Cold War," published in the UK as "Who Paid the Piper."
Unfortunately, Caute is of that breed of intellectuals whose political stance consists in being neither Right nor Left, but merely standing to the right of the Left and the left of the Right: he counters Saunders by accumulating factoids (fascinating factoids, I'll admit) that are meant to prove that either side in the Cold War was reaching for the lowest common denominator in their rush to use Culture for their own ends. His methodology is that not uncommon subgenre of historical research, the light-scholarly book that relies almost exclusively on press clippings. His stance: "Of course, Communists eat babies; on the other hand, MacCarthyism was bad, because some non-Communists were caught in the net." That there might have been a large number of writers, musicians, dancers, etc., that were caught between the two superpowers, is something Caute doesn't really consider, and that's unfortunate, since that was Saunders' most devastating point.
I'd give Caute an extra star for the factoids (728 pages, including notes), except that after following up on a few footnotes I found that he frequently misquoted or misunderstood his sources. This is not a book, it's a poorly annotated bibliography.
Displaying 1 of 1 review