Jazz, Rock, and Rebels: Cold War Politics and American Culture in a Divided Germany (Studies on the History of Society and Culture, 35)

Rating:
Summary: Rethinking Cultural Imperialism
Review: This book is an innovative study of the impact of American culture on both East and West Germany in the 1950s and early 60s. It is highly readable and always interesting, tracing the cultural and political impact of jazz, rock-n-roll, and American "rebel" movies like the Wild One or Rebel Without a Cause. The book looks at the reactions of state officials and experts, who vacillated between decrying the American imports as imperial "un-culture" and trying to appropriate them as resources for the cold war conflict between East and West. Perhaps more importantly, it also examines the reactions of the young fans, who used these American cultural products to stage their own rebellions against state authority and official norms. Always attentive to issues of race and gender, subtle and yet clear, this is a great analysis that goes well beyond the usual terms of the debate about cultural imperialism.