Book Review: 'The Free World,' by Louis Menand - The New York Times - 0 views
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The evenhanded approach of Louis Menand, who won a Pulitzer Prize for “The Metaphysical Club,” is like a breath of fresh air. “The Free World” sparkles. Fully original, beautifully written, it covers the interchange of arts and ideas between the United States and Europe in the decades following World War II
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Menand is no cheerleader; his assessment of America’s failures can be withering. But his larger point, backed by a mountain of research and reams of thoughtful commentary, is that American culture ascended in this era for the right reasons. “Ideas mattered. Painting mattered. Movies mattered. Poetry mattered,”
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Much of this was the result of the forced migration of intellectual talent after Mussolini and Hitler came to power. We tend to remember the scientists who fled — like Albert Einstein — much more than the composers, performers, writers, poets, philosophers and political theorists. At a time when immigration to the United States had all but ended, the door remained ajar for those with unique résumés. “Getting into the United States was like getting into a highly selective college,” Menand writes.
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he carefully links the ascendancy of these artists to a conveniently timed revolution in their industry. “They needed critics … who could understand and write about their work, dealers who would show it, and curators and collectors who would buy it.” Put simply, they needed an art world that would cater to their wants. America provided one.
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The New Yorker, a publication, Menand notes, that catered to well-educated, culturally insecure folk “eager not to like the wrong things, or to like the right things for the wrong reasons.”