An ambitious, if uneven, book that will interest history buffs and dance aficionados.
A historian examines the political uses of modern dance in this sweeping exploration of legendary dancer and choreographer Martha Graham’s government-sponsored Cold War tours.
“I am not a propagandist….My dances are not political,” Graham once declared, but Phillips, a history lecturer at Columbia University, reveals in this expansive and meticulously researched debut that art and politics were deeply intertwined for the modern-dance pioneer. From 1955 to the late 1980s, Graham went on numerous U.S. government–sponsored tours of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Although the post–World War II deployment of artists and intellectuals to promote a pro–U.S. agenda abroad is no secret, “cultural histories of Cold War diplomacy have overlooked modern dance as a discrete subject,” Phillips convincingly argues. Graham enthusiastically took iconic works, such as “Appalachian Spring,” to Japan, Israel, and other countries, and her dances were meant to showcase American values, such as freedom, individualism, and the pioneer spirit. The choreographer, despite her disavowal of politics, was in reality a canny political operator, as Phillips shows, as well as a valuable asset on the “cocktail circuit of diplomacy.” Her troupe received tour support from every presidential administration from Eisenhower’s to Reagan’s, and she skillfully shifted with the political winds, cozying up to various power players in order to get much-needed financial support for her company; letters that Phillips unearthed in her archival research show Graham’s persistent efforts, especially in her later years, to endear herself to different first ladies.
Phillips effectively combines a survey of cultural diplomacy during the Cold War with an examination of Graham’s outsize role in the history of American dance, and interviews with Graham company dancers formed part of her research. In the 1950s, the choreographer’s innovations were a powerful counterpoint to the rigidity of Soviet classical ballet, and her work, while not explicitly political, could carry strong messages with their multiracial casting, challenging subject matter, and international collaborations with artists, such as sculptor Isamu Noguchi. However, as Graham aged, her style ossified, and by the 1970s, her work was increasingly seen as “old-fashioned.” That fact, combined with her imperious personality and a changing political landscape, made her somewhat less useful as a diplomatic tool, the author notes. Still, as late as 1987, her company was traveling to East Berlin to perform; a trip to Moscow was in the works at the time the Soviet Union collapsed, just before Graham’s death at 96. Phillips offers valuable insight into how the United States used dance as a propaganda tool. However, the book doesn’t make clear what, if anything, the government gained from such efforts. Graham also remains an elusive figure throughout the work; readers hear of her alcoholism, her reluctance to retire from performing, and her relationships with figures such as first lady Betty Ford as well as her disinterest in feminism. However, she only really comes alive when Phillips discusses her dancing, as in a moving description of her performance in “Clytemnestra.”
An ambitious, if uneven, book that will interest history buffs and dance aficionados.Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-19-061036-4
Page Count: 472
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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