{"product_id":"the-propaganda-of-freedom-jfk-shostakovich-stravinsky-and-the-cultural-cold-war-9780252045271","title":"The Propaganda of Freedom: Jfk, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and the Cultural Cold War","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe perils of equating notions of freedom with artistic vitality\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e Eloquently extolled by President John F. Kennedy, the idea that only artists in free societies can produce great art became a bedrock assumption of the Cold War. That this conviction defied centuries of historical evidence--to say nothing of achievements within the Soviet Union--failed to impact impregnable cultural Cold War doctrine. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Joseph Horowitz writes: \"That so many fine minds could have cheapened freedom by over-praising it, turning it into a reductionist propaganda mantra, is one measure of the intellectual cost of the Cold War.\" He shows how the efforts of the CIA-funded Congress for Cultural Freedom were distorted by an anti-totalitarian \"psychology of exile\" traceable to its secretary general, the displaced Russian aristocrat\/composer Nicolas Nabokov, and to Nabokov's hero Igor Stravinsky. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e In counterpoint, Horowitz investigates personal, social, and political factors that actually shape the creative act. He here focuses on Stravinsky, who in Los Angeles experienced a \"freedom not to matter,\" and Dmitri Shostakovich, who was both victim and beneficiary of Soviet cultural policies. He also takes a fresh look at cultural exchange and explores paradoxical similarities and differences framing the popularization of classical music in the Soviet Union and the United States. In closing, he assesses the Kennedy administration's arts advocacy initiatives and their pertinence to today's fraught American national identity. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Challenging long-entrenched myths, \u003ci\u003eThe Propaganda of Freedom\u003c\/i\u003e newly explores the tangled relationship between the ideology of freedom and ideals of cultural achievement. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJoseph Horowitz\u003c\/b\u003e is an award-winning cultural historian specializing in the American arts. His thirteen books include \u003ci\u003eDvorak's Prophecy and the Vexed Fate of Black Classical\u003c\/i\u003e Music and \u003ci\u003eArtists in Exile: How Refugees from Twentieth-Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts\u003c\/i\u003e. His \"More than Music\" documentaries are a regular feature of NPR's \u003ci\u003e1A\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Illinois Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50497857356050,"sku":"9780252045271","price":36.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_1a42c636-7f4b-41c0-95aa-7a3eb2c64ed6.jpg?v=1730722050","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-propaganda-of-freedom-jfk-shostakovich-stravinsky-and-the-cultural-cold-war-9780252045271","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}