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
Deliberately provocative, with much for left-inclined activists to ponder.
A wide-ranging critique of leftist politics as not being left enough.
Continuing his examination of progressive reform movements begun with The Cult of Smart, Marxist analyst deBoer takes on a left wing that, like all political movements, is subject to “the inertia of established systems.” The great moment for the left, he suggests, ought to have been the summer of 2020, when the murder of George Floyd and the accumulated crimes of Donald Trump should have led to more than a minor upheaval. In Minneapolis, he writes, first came the call from the city council to abolish the police, then make reforms, then cut the budget; the grace note was “an increase in funding to the very department it had recently set about to dissolve.” What happened? The author answers with the observation that it is largely those who can afford it who populate the ranks of the progressive movement, and they find other things to do after a while, even as those who stand to benefit most from progressive reform “lack the cultural capital and economic stability to have a presence in our national media and politics.” The resulting “elite capture” explains why the Democratic Party is so ineffectual in truly representing minority and working-class constituents. Dispirited, deBoer writes, “no great American revolution is coming in the early twenty-first century.” Accommodation to gradualism was once counted heresy among doctrinaire Marxists, but deBoer holds that it’s likely the only truly available path toward even small-scale gains. Meanwhile, he scourges nonprofits for diluting the tax base. It would be better, he argues, to tax those who can afford it rather than allowing deductible donations and “reducing the availability of public funds for public uses.” Usefully, the author also argues that identity politics centering on difference will never build a left movement, which instead must find common cause against conservatism and fascism.
Deliberately provocative, with much for left-inclined activists to ponder.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781668016015
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.
Four decades after Watergate shook America, journalist Woodward (The Price of Politics, 2012, etc.) returns to the scandal to profile Alexander Butterfield, the Richard Nixon aide who revealed the existence of the Oval Office tapes and effectively toppled the presidency.
Of all the candidates to work in the White House, Butterfield was a bizarre choice. He was an Air Force colonel and wanted to serve in Vietnam. By happenstance, his colleague H.R. Haldeman helped Butterfield land a job in the Nixon administration. For three years, Butterfield worked closely with the president, taking on high-level tasks and even supervising the installation of Nixon’s infamous recording system. The writing here is pure Woodward: a visual, dialogue-heavy, blow-by-blow account of Butterfield’s tenure. The author uses his long interviews with Butterfield to re-create detailed scenes, which reveal the petty power plays of America’s most powerful men. Yet the book is a surprisingly funny read. Butterfield is passive, sensitive, and dutiful, the very opposite of Nixon, who lets loose a constant stream of curses, insults, and nonsensical bluster. Years later, Butterfield seems conflicted about his role in such an eccentric presidency. “I’m not trying to be a Boy Scout and tell you I did it because it was the right thing to do,” Butterfield concedes. It is curious to see Woodward revisit an affair that now feels distantly historical, but the author does his best to make the story feel urgent and suspenseful. When Butterfield admitted to the Senate Select Committee that he knew about the listening devices, he felt its significance. “It seemed to Butterfield there was absolute silence and no one moved,” writes Woodward. “They were still and quiet as if they were witnessing a hinge of history slowly swinging open….It was as if a bare 10,000 volt cable was running through the room, and suddenly everyone touched it at once.”
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1644-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2015
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