Princeton University Press America & the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe

Though shattered materially and psychologically by World War II, educated Europeans did not shed their opinions about the inferiority, vulgarity, and commercialism of American culture. American elites deeply resented this condescension. They believed that the United States had two culture wars to win: one against the Soviet Bloc as part of the larger struggle against communism and the other against deeply rooted negative views of America as a civilization. In 1958, Shepard Stone, then directing the Ford Foundation's International Affairs program, suggested that his staff "measure" America's cultural impact in Europe. He wanted to determine whether efforts to improve opinions of American culture were yielding good returns. This book uses Stone as a window to this world in which the European-American relationship was hammered out in cultural terms - an arena where many of the 20th century's major intellectual trends and conflicts unfolded.