{"product_id":"the-free-world-art-and-though-in-the-cold-war-louis-menand","title":"The Free World: Art and Though in the Cold War;  Louis Menand","description":"\u003cdiv data-testid=\"description\" class=\"BookPageMetadataSection__description\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"TruncatedContent\" tabindex=\"-1\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"TruncatedContent__text TruncatedContent__text--large TruncatedContent__text--expanded\" data-testid=\"contentContainer\" tabindex=\"-1\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"DetailsLayoutRightParagraph\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"DetailsLayoutRightParagraph__widthConstrained\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Formatted\"\u003eThe Cold War was not just a contest of power. It was also about ideas, in the broadest sense--economic and political, artistic and personal. In\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Free World\u003c\/i\u003e, the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar and critic Louis Menand tells the story of American culture in the pivotal years from the end of World War II to Vietnam and shows how changing economic, technological, and social forces put their mark on creations of the mind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow did elitism and an anti-totalitarian skepticism of passion and ideology give way to a new sensibility defined by freewheeling experimentation and loving the Beatles? How was the ideal of \"freedom\" applied to causes that ranged from anti-communism and civil rights to radical acts of self-creation via art and even crime?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith the wit and insight familiar to readers of\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Metaphysical Club\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eand his\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eessays\u003ci\u003e,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eMenand takes us inside Hannah Arendt's Manhattan, the Paris of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Merce Cunningham and John Cage's residences at North Carolina's Black Mountain College, and the Memphis studio where Sam Phillips and Elvis Presley created a new music for the American teenager. He examines the post war vogue for French existentialism, structuralism and post-structuralism, the rise of abstract expressionism and pop art, Allen Ginsberg's friendship with Lionel Trilling, James Baldwin's transformation into a Civil Right spokesman, Susan Sontag's challenges to the New York Intellectuals, the defeat of obscenity laws, and the rise of the New Hollywood.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStressing the rich flow of ideas across the Atlantic, he also shows how Europeans played a vital role in promoting and influencing American art and entertainment. By the end of the Vietnam era, the American government had lost the moral prestige it enjoyed at the end of the Second World War, but America's once-despised culture had become respected and adored. With unprecedented verve and range, this book explains how that happened.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eApril 20 2021\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"TruncatedContent__text TruncatedContent__text--medium\" data-testid=\"contentContainer\" tabindex=\"-1\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"DetailsLayoutRightParagraph\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"DetailsLayoutRightParagraph__widthConstrained\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"Formatted\"\u003eLouis Menand, professor of English at Harvard University, is the author of\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Metaphysical Club\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in History. A longtime staff writer for\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"FREEAIR Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52330912121154,"sku":null,"price":9.76,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0730\/8735\/3154\/files\/freeworld.jpg?v=1773857274","url":"https:\/\/shop.freeairbooks.com\/products\/the-free-world-art-and-though-in-the-cold-war-louis-menand","provider":"FREEAIR Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}