Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"How did cultural globalization in the twentieth century travel along such a one-way path? And why is the U.S.—that globe-bestriding colossus with more than 700 overseas bases—so strangely isolated? The answer, Sam Lebovic’s new book,
A Righteous Smokescreen, convincingly argues, largely comes down to American policy in the middle decades of the twentieth century. . . . [Lebovic's] approach is wildly innovative and helps us dramatically rethink the postwar US and the limits to the world order it helped construct." * The New Republic *
"Sophisticated. . . Lebovic's prodigious research and effective argument make this an important study for understanding Cold War–era global culture." * Choice *
“This is an absolutely stupendous book. If you've ever wondered how globalization became so asymmetric—with one country filling the airways with its movies, sports, and news—Lebovic shows you.
A Righteous Smokescreen is a brilliant history of the rise of the United States’ information empire.” * Daniel Immerwahr, author of How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States *
“
A Righteous Smokescreen presents a tightly focused, impeccably documented argument that the United States’ rhetorical commitment to liberal internationalism after World War II was mere camouflage for its hard-nosed drive toward global dominance. Lebovic crisply deconstructs the pieties about freedom that underpinned Washington’s claims to global leadership in the 1940s—and continue to animate American foreign-policy debates today.” * Diana Lemberg, author of Barriers Down: How American Power and Free-Flow Policies Shaped Global Media *
“Lebovic’s focus on ‘quotidian world-ordering’ reveals anything but ordinary findings. He convincingly argues for the importance of US institutional politics in the making of cultural globalization, showing how bureaucrats’ decisions shaped millions of lives in realms as disparate as education, information, and travel. Erudite and accessible at the same time, Lebovic’s book revises our understanding of phenomena from passports to the press. Few books show why bureaucrats matter with such verve and precision.” * Heidi Tworek, author of News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900–1945 *
“How free was information in the post-World War II era of US liberal internationalism? In this brilliant, necessary book, Lebovic dispels a smokescreen of lofty, liberatory rhetoric, painstakingly reconstructing and incisively analyzing the political, institutional, and technical hard-wiring of a deeply uneven and unequal global information landscape.
A Righteous Smokescreen will be indispensable for historians of US internationalism and media politics, and anyone interested in globalization’s past and present.” * Paul A. Kramer, author of The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States and the Philippines *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Chapter 1: The Birth of UNESCO and the Limits of Postwar Cultural Reconstruction
Chapter 2: Airplanes, Embassies, and Educational Exchange (or, the Fruit of War Junk)
Chapter 3: Passports, Visas, and the Politics of International Travel
Chapter 4: Press Freedom, Propaganda, and the Global Flow of Information
Chapter 5: The Fear of Foreign Culture in Cold War America
Conclusion: The Unfulfilled Promise of Cultural Globalization
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Notes
Index
