Description
Book SynopsisBarriers Down reveals the unexpected origins of freedom of information in political, economic, and cultural battles in the postwar period. Diana Lemberg traces how the United States shaped media around the world under the banner of the “free flow of information,” showing how the push for global media access acted as a vehicle for American power.
Trade ReviewBarriers Down refutes the cliché that "information wants to be free." Instead, Lemberg details how the notion of barrier-free flow of information was contested in the late twentieth century and how a group of predominantly American diplomats, business leaders, and scholars secured its freedom. It is both timely and historically wise. -- David Engerman, author of
The Price of Aid: The Economic Cold War in IndiaHistorians of U.S. global power have been curiously disinterested in the history of the media. In this wide-ranging and thought-provoking book, Diana Lemberg steps into the breach, reminding us just how many intellectuals, politicians, and diplomats spent the Cold War arguing about the future of global communications. -- Sam Lebovic, author of
Free Speech and Unfree News: The Paradox of Press Freedom in AmericaLemberg offers us an innovative discussion of how the United States actively sought to remove obstacles to global media after 1945.
Barriers Down ties the deeply political question of media openness to key issues during the postwar period: international development, the Cold War, national sovereignty, decolonization, and the collapse of empire. It provides a valuable and fresh perspective on central topics in international affairs. -- David Ekbladh, author of
The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World OrderIn the 1940s and 1950s, the “free flow of information” became an American watchword. But this “flow” was neither free nor flowing nor even necessarily informational. Historian Diana Lemberg presents a critical biography of the famous phrase, whose leading advocates assumed information would move from the United States to the rest of the world and not the other way around.
Barriers Down recovers long-forgotten debates that are more relevant than ever. -- Michael Schudson, author of
The Rise of the Right to Know: Politics and the Culture of Transparency, 1945–1975Historians of technology will find this book useful in evaluating international political disagreements over the appropriate uses of radio, television, satellite, and digital communications technologies. * Technology and Culture *
A rigorous and readable study at the intersection of media and politics, from which both media and international affairs scholars can profit. * Choice *
Barriers down is a well-timed work of great relevance to historians, political scientists and policy-makers aiming to understand the connection between information infrastructure and geopolitics. Lemberg’s study represents a rigorous, interdisciplinary approach to a critical, ongoing policy discussion and will endure as perhaps the go-to tale of how truly global media came to be. * International Affairs *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Liberalizing Missions
1. Freedom for Every Medium, Everywhere: Information Politics in the 1940s United States
2. Quantifying and Qualifying Freedom of Information During the Early Cold War
3. Information Flows and the Conundrum of Multilingualism
4. Capacity as Freedom During the Development Decade
5. Satellites and the End of Sovereignty
6. Cultural Turns in the International Arena
7. “A Global First Amendment War”: Freedom of Information on the Verge of the Neoliberal Era
Epilogue: Free Flow Bytes Back?
Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
