When Literary Politics Mattered to Geopolitics

Abstract

This essay-review examines new books about the roles that American writers played in twentieth-century foreign policy debates, cultural diplomacy, and political advocacy, both in the lead-up to World War II and in the early years of the Cold War. The books under consideration are Ichiro Takayoshi’s American Writers and the Approach of World War II, 1935–1941 , and Greg Barnhisel’s Cold War Modernism . The essay-review assesses the claims of each book regarding their shared interest in how and why various American writers and intellectuals engaged in debates and campaigns related to the nation’s foreign policy decisions before and after World War II. In turn, the essay-review argues that in comparative terms, contemporary American writers have all but abdicated their once-active and pluralist presence in national debates about the US’s possible roles and responsibilities in the world at large.