Dr. John H. Brown:
[
Cold War Modernists] is an impressive achievement, based on extensive archival research, a close reading of the most important secondary literature, and some key interviews.
Jason Harding:
A refreshing contribution to scholarship on the so-called cultural Cold War.... Cold War Modernists displays a literary critic's sensitivity to rhetorical nuance combined with an intellectual historian's grasp of cultural, social and political contexts. It is written with style, assurance and at times with wit.
Elegant and richly researched
Andrew J. Falk:
The greatest merits of this work are its grand scope, clear argument, and impressive archival research; the writing is crisp, witty, and accessible.... [An] outstanding book.... [Cold War Modernists] deserves wide readership. There is no denying that Barnhisel has contributed to our collective understanding of modernism and its role in Cold War cultural diplomacy.
William J. Maxwell:
Barnhisel's book has a good deal to teach historians of the Cold War located outside art and literature departments.... He sifts through dozens of unpublished primary sources and writes with narrative drive as well as learned, enlivening wit.
Will Norman:
An important source for scholars and students of Cold War culture. The account it offers of cultural diplomacy in the Truman and Eisenhower years is both thorough and illuminating, offering a rich new account of a story we thought to be familiar.
Stephen J. Whitfield:
Coherently organized, superbly researched, and judiciously balanced.
Donal Harris:
Barnhisel's book will rightly become the go-to reference for critics and historians of the Cultural Cold War.... Cold War Modernists focus on the arts-adjacent institutions that filter literary and artistic value provides a new way to think about how and why modernism has had such a lasting legacy in the 20th century.
Giles Scott-Smith:
Greg Barnhisel's Cold War Modernists charts impeccably the transformation of twentieth-century modernism from abrasive (European) avant-garde to a stylistic iconography of Western (American) freedom.... It is one of those commendable books that invites you to revisit what has already been said and makes you realize that the established story, up till now, was lacking.
Will Norman:
An important source for scholars and students of Cold War culture.... Thorough and illuminating, offering a rich new account of a story we thought to be familiar.
Lise Jaillant:
A welcome addition to the scholarship on modernism after the Second World War.
An exquisite, intricate, and satisfying study.... Essential.
Cold War Modernists makes a valuable addition to the grown literature on the cultural aspects of the Cold War. Thoroughly researched and written in a compact and readable style, it is a work that sets itself a viable task and accomplishes it.
Glenn Altschuler:
Making good use of archival sources, Mr. Barnhisel provides an engaging and informative survey.
Steve Donoghue:
[A] groundbreaking book.
Joan Shelley Rubin, author of Cultural Considerations: Essays on Readers, Writers, and Musicians in Postwar America:
Deftly working across genres, Barnhisel mobilizes rich archival sources to show not only the accommodation of modernism to anti-Communism but also the entanglement of the highbrow and the middlebrow. In that way, this lively, fascinating book contributes to the histories of both cultural diplomacy and cultural hierarchy.
Hugh Wilford, author of The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America and America's Great Game: The CIA's Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East.:
Conceptually sophisticated, thoroughly researched, and lucidly written, Greg Barnhisel's important new study combines an assured grasp of historical context with sensitive readings of artworks and literary texts to illuminate previously obscure aspects of the 'Cultural Cold War.'
Yale Richmond, Foreign Service Officer, retired, and former Counselor for Press and Culture in the American Embassy in Moscow:
This book fills a long-felt need for a scholarly work on the importance of U.S. cultural exchange with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during the Cold War.
Lawrence Rainey, University of York:
This is a thoroughly excellent book, a magnum opus of genuine scholarship, and a genuine delight for readers.
