ToE's Cultural Cold War miniseries concludes with three stories about containment and death. Richard Wright delivers his final lecture on Black Spies in Paris, Dwight Macdonald’s Mass Cult & Mid Cult finally debuts & flops, and Kenneth Tynan discovers the limits of social and cultural protest. Show notes: Matthew Tynan reads Kenneth Tynan’s 1960 speech, Michael Billington wrote a 1960 Parody of Kenneth Tynan, Jefferson Pooley recaps Personal Influence and Daphne Park explains how she...

]Richard Wright died from a mysterious illness on November 28th, 1960. Or was he murdered? Tune in for a new listen to the final chapter of Richard Wright’s life: forged letters, fake terrorist groups, fraudulent doctors and French Radio.Shownotes: Françoise Vergès writes about decolonialism, and French history and thought, Kathleen Gyssels is writing about the Moulin d’Andé. Thomas Riegler writes about the Red Hand, Madeleine S’s father was assassinated by the Red Hand, Lauren du Graf wrote...

In 1959, Anti-Americanism surged in the UK. England seethed over America’s treatment of its Prime Minister who was smacked down for daring to use diplomacy to resolve the crisis over divided Germany.  In 1959 England also fretted over a new American export: the Beatnik. The British foreign office forcefully responded with a report advocating for “ an increased effort in the field of press, radio and television in the U.K. to say the right kind of things about the Americans.” This is the very...

In the summer of 1959, Nixon and Khrushchev argued over a washing machine in a backstage kitchen in Moscow, while American Cold War intellectuals gathered in the Poconos to defend Kitsch. Dwight Macdonald, whose theory of mass culture translated too easily into Anti-Americanism, was barred from participating because this was no ordinary mass culture conference; it was an Anti Anti-Americanism operation. Meanwhile, in London, Dwight Macdonald delivered a mass culture lecture of his own called...

In the fall of 1958, Kenneth Tynan moved from London to New York and upon arrival, clashed with Hollywood mogul Samuel Goldwyn over socially engaged art and the politics of apolitical culture on live TV. At the same moment New Yorker writer Dwight Macdonald went West to report on “New” Hollywood's ambitions to create commercially and artistically successful films. We also meet two of Professor Macdonald’s former students from a Mass Culture course he taught at Bard College in 1958. Meanwhile...

In 1956, Richard Wright spoke of islands of free men at the first Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Paris. James Baldwin critiqued the event for Encounter, the CIA’s propaganda magazine. We take a close listen to the original recordings. Shownotes: Merve Fejzula and Cedric Tolliver both wrote about the 1956 Congrès des écrivains et artistes noirs. Darryl Pinckney wrote on Norman Mailer and Denis Leroux wrote on Antoine Bonnemaison. Support ToE and get access to the incredible...

In 1956 London Theater critic Kenneth Tynan helped launch a youth movement committed to exposing social and political issues on stage, on screen and in literature. We take a close look at the operators and opportunists behind England’s Angry Young Men. Shownotes: Michael Billington wrote for the Guardian, Celia Brayfield wrote Rebel Writers, Clare Bucknell wrote The Treasuries Laura Bradley writes on Brecht. Support ToE and get access to the incredible exclusive bonus companion series to...

In 1956, New Yorker writer Dwight Macdonald joined Encounter, a magazine secretly backed by American and British security agencies. He arrived in London just as British Influencers turned a young Existentialist named Colin Wilson into England's answer to Jean-Paul Sartre. Meanwhile, the CIA incited a youth rebellion in communist Hungary. We investigate the covert propaganda behind Operation Free Youth Action and Operation Anti-Sartre and the Outsider’s influence on Macdonald’s famous critique...

In the 1950s the CIA weaponized culture to capture hearts and minds in Europe and Africa. We meet three writers (Richard Wright, Kenneth Tynan, and Dwight Macdonald) who got caught up in this battle both as collaborators and targets between the years of 1956 - 1960. We also meet a propagandist responsible for the CIA’s cinematic version of 1984 (Operation Big Brother) and “books that don’t smack of propaganda” aimed at European Intellectuals - including James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native...

The new ToE series Propaganda is Art has a companion podcast called Propaganda Notes & Sources, think audio footnotes! Each episode in Not All Propaganda is Art gets its own corresponding episode of Propaganda Notes & Sources. Your host goes through the script for each episode and cites all the corresponding original sources he consulted, and the archives he visited while reporting this series. Like all great footnotes, these go deep and contain many digressions and new stories. ...

One of my favorite technology critics has just published a novel about Self Driving Cars (or fake Self Driving Cars). We talk about her new book, and the hidden human worker nestled in our technological revolution. I can’t recommend Wrong Way enough!

Today we live inside data systems that contain, surveil, and judge us. In his new book, the Hank Show, author and journalist McKenzie Funk provides us with a totally unique origin story of our world: A guy named Hank Asher. We talk with McKenzie Funk about the  former Florida conto painter, drug-running pilot, alleged CIA asset, and  pioneering computer programmer known as the father of data fusion. McKenzie Funk has written many stories about the dangers of computer systems that can get us...

Two very different tales about making stuff up about the CIA. Your host shares the story of Sylvia Press, who in the 1950s, wrote a revenge novel after she was fired during the McCarthy purges. And author Jefferson Morley tells us about the time CIA director Richard Helms tried to create an American James Bond with the help of future Watergate burglar E Howard Hunt. Get Jefferson Morley’s amazing new book: Scorpion's Dance. Sylvia Press’s novel The Care of Devils is harder to find.

Citizens armed only with Molotov cocktails battle with Russian tanks on the streets of… Budapest.  In November of 1956 Russian troops invaded Hungary. The revolution was crushed and thousands of Hungarians fled. Will history repeat itself? We talk with Réka Pigniczky about her memory project, a film series dedicated to the Hungarian revolution. Also: Branko Marcetic compares America’s response to the events of 1956 with our current posturing over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. ps. Your...

The life of musician Connie Converse easily reduces down to one of those Hemingway length sad stories: Before Dylan there was Connie Converse and then she disappeared. In his new book “To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse” Howard Fishman gives us the complete tale. We meet up with Howard and learn why this incredible musician just couldn’t catch a break in 1950s New York City, and why he is devoted to her life and art. You can get a copy of Howard’s...

We hear from two photographers who are masters at showing us what is hard to see, and always has been hard to see, in America.

The war/invasion/fighting is still going. We revisit our program on NFTs, art and war. Your host visits the 59th International Art Biennale in Venice, the world’s most important art fair and the first since the global pandemic. Plus Digital Ukranians, Sound Art, and NFTs.

One of the episodes in my False Alarm! Series from 2018 imagined a future where Elon Musk stepped up to help with the News. That Algorithmic Oligarchic joke is no longer funny. On 4.20.2023 Elon Musk followed through on his threat and brought Twitter to heel. From 2018: A handful of tech barons now own the news but only one can rule the fake news. A chat with the comedy team behind the CBC’sThis is That satirical news show turns into breaking news about Elon Musk.

Back in 2018 your host met Stormy Daniels as part of his 15 part investigation into America’s disinformation complex. You can find that series here. On this historic day, as we learn that no American floats above the law, we turn back to this historic TOE moment, a remix of False Alarm, featuring a profile of the artist Lynn Hershman Leeson, a conversation with writer Susan Jacoby and Benjamen Walker’s meeting with Stormy Daniels!

A remixed complete version of our two part Watergate series from last year:  Journalists may write the first draft of history but Hollywood prints the legends and the myths. The 1976 film All the President’s Men remains our most authoritative account of Watergate. The film is also responsible for the myth of Deep Throat. Your host follows the myth… from 1976 to the present.  Plus a reporter from the Washington Post newsroom who never made it into All the President’s Men yet did more to...

Some books have titles that jump out right out at you, Carmela Ciuraru’s new group biography Lives of the Wives is definitely one of those books. She tells us about her five wives and the hazards of literary relationships.

Two very different tales about making stuff up about the CIA. Your host shares the story of Sylvia Press, who in the 1950s, wrote a revenge novel after she was fired during the McCarthy purges. And author Jefferson Morley tells us about the time CIA director Richard Helms tried to create an American James Bond with the help of future Watergate burglar E Howard Hunt. Get Jefferson Morley’s amazing new book: Scorpion's Dance. Sylvia Press’s novel The Care of Devils is harder to find.

As decibel levels continue to rise, threatening human existence we turn to two listening experts for help. George Prochnik and George Foy both investigate listening, silence and noise. 

One of our heroes Barbara Ehrenreich passed away earlier this year. She was one of America’s best undercover journalists. We once spoke with her about her book Bright Sided, her journey into the heart of American darkness:  the  positive thinking industry. Also we hear from an ex clan member who reveals the secret of the twinkling cross. Plus your host wonders “what would the founders do” @radiotopia is THE home for independent podcasts–we own our shows, and make them how we want, because...