> As I'm sure you know, this is a hugely open ended question, and there is an
> industry of cultural studies on the US in the 50 and 60s. If there's any
> particular detail you are interested in, there is a book on it.
Hi Michael-
Thanks for the suggestion of Galbraith. Those books have been on my reading list for quite a while, and I'll nudge them up to the top now.
I am aware of some of the cultural studies work during this time period, but haven't always been thrilled by the results. Often it remains at a very general level, neglecting important distinctions between cultural forms, or when it start as individual studies of disciplines or people, doesn't rise much above contexualized biography.
Lots of folks seemed gripped by Cold War Studies right now, but I think framing everything around a need to defeat Communism doesn't reveal the whole story. This is why I find Varoufakis' simple image of the "Global Plan" interesting. This resonates for me, for example, in the Blum-Byrnes Agreement,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blum–Byrnes_agreement>
which seems just what Varoufakis' in talking about, and seems to represent a link between "planned recycling of industrial surplus" and US cultural activities. I also like Serge Guibaut's work on the triumph of Abstract Expressionism in Paris, although his accounts stop very early into the period.
The moment that really concerns me, though, is the reversal of official cultural attitudes in the US during the Kennedy administration. Obviously, some of this has to do with the promotion of cultural consumption by the likes of Fortune magazine, and Jacqueline Kennedy's presence in the White House, but I still haven't encountered any study attempting to account for why this reversal happened, and happened so sharply.
Best, Charles