The Cultural Cold War - 2nd Edition by Frances Stonor Saunders (Paperback)

About the Book

"Published in the United Kingdom as Who paid the piper? by Granta Books, London, 1999"--Copyright page.

Book Synopsis

During the Cold War, freedom of expression was vaunted as liberal democracy's most cherished possession-but such freedom was put in service of a hidden agenda. In The Cultural Cold War, Frances Stonor Saunders reveals the extraordinary efforts of a secret campaign in which some of the most vocal exponents of intellectual freedom in the West were working for or subsidized by the CIA-whether they knew it or not.

Called "the most comprehensive account yet of the [CIA's] activities between 1947 and 1967" by the New York Times, the book presents shocking evidence of the CIA's undercover program of cultural interventions in Western Europe and at home, drawing together declassified documents and exclusive interviews to expose the CIA's astonishing campaign to deploy the likes of Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, Robert Lowell, George Orwell, and Jackson Pollock as weapons in the Cold War. Translated into ten languages, this classic work-now with a new preface by the author-is "a real contribution to popular understanding of the postwar period" (The Wall Street Journal), and its story of covert cultural efforts to win hearts and minds continues to be relevant today.

Review Quotes

"A tale of intrigue and betrayal, with scene after scene as thrilling as any in a John le Carré novel."
-Chronicle of Higher Education

"A major work of investigative history [and] an extremely valuable contribution to the all-important post-World War II record."
-Edward Said, London Review of Books

"Avoids polemic and fits the fragments of elusive fact into a coherent and persuasive narrative."
-Lewis Lapham, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Makes clear the sinuous interlocking nature of American governmental, corporate and cultural life . . . consistently fascinating."
-Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World

About the Author

Frances Stonor Saunders is the author of The Devil's Broker and The Woman Who Shot Mussolini. She has worked as the arts editor of the New Statesman; writes and presents for BBC radio; and has written for Areté, The Guardian, Lapham's Quarterly, and the Los Angeles Times. She lives in London.