The US was a newcomer to culture wars of this kind. The Soviet Union established its ‘Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Nations’ in 1925; French, Germans and Italians had been actively underwriting overseas ‘cultural diplomacy’ since before 1914. The Americans did not begin to budget for such activities until just before World War Two, and it was only in 1946, with the establishment of the Fulbright Program, that they entered the field seriously.
