With Korea and Vietnam looming on the horizon and nuclear war hanging overhead, the Cold War was an anxious time. And yet, as Louis Menand chronicles in his massive and authoritative account, it was also a time of great creativity and cultural growth.
The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War is as expansive as its title, and as broad in scope and long in page count. Remarkably, Menand remains on target through an analysis and summary of literature, film, philosophy, visual art and music from the late 1940s through the late ‘60s as played against a backdrop of politics and sociology. The theory of structuralism and the birth of cybernetics aren’t neglected, either.
In the “soft power” contest between the Western allies and the Soviet bloc, the Soviets fell short in most areas thanks in part to the rigid cultural policies of Stalinism. Economics was also a factor. American prosperity after World War II meant that money was spent, largely by private persons and philanthropies until the late ‘60s, on arts and culture. For artists bridling under restrictions, censorship in the U.S. posed a challenge, not a long prison sentence as in the Soviet bloc. “Most striking was the nature of the audience” people cared,” Menand writes. A significant segment of the public followed—if from afar—developments in painting and poetry. Bestselling novels were widely read.
Many pages of The Free World turn around the back and forth between France and the U.S.—between Paris, formerly the capital of modern art, and the rise of New York. America’s cultural ascent was solidified by postwar prosperity as well as an influx of refugees from Hitler’s Europe, yet Paris, the city of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, continued to inspire and provoke America, despite the nation’s tendency toward social conformity.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
Although Menand leans more toward the world of Jackson Pollock and John Cage than Elvis Presley or George Martin, The Free World includes a cogent chapter on the origins and rapid development of rock music. During the ‘60s, the primary cultural dialogue was no longer between the U.S. and France but the U.S. and the U.K. He has a surprisingly sharp eye for pop chart rankings and other statistics, yet he doesn’t ignore The Velvet Underground, a band that sold few records during the span of the book but later influenced countless musicians.
The Free World is a work of enormous erudition and understanding. A good writer as well as a scholar, Menand avoids cliches and choses telling moments in the lives of key players, never failing to place them in their social context. It might be the only book on postwar culture most of us will ever need to read.
