Plateaus of freedom : nationality, culture, and state security in Canada, 1940-1960 / Mark Kristmanson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kristmanson, Mark, 1960- author.

Series:

Canadian social history series.

Canadian Social History Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Politics and culture--Canada--History--20th century.

Politics and culture.

Art and state--Canada--History--20th century.

Art and state.

Internal security--Canada--History--20th century.

Internal security.

Intelligence service--Canada--History--20th century.

Intelligence service.

Cold War.

Canada--Cultural policy.

Canada.

Canada--Intellectual life--20th century.

Canada--Politics and government--1945-.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (319 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Toronto, [Ontario] ; Buffalo, [New York] ; London, [England] : University of Toronto Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

'Canadians are not accustomed to thinking of censorship, secret intelligence, and propaganda as a single entity. Much less do they consider that these covertly militaristic activities have anything to do with culture.' So writes Mark Krismanson in this important study of the intertwining activities and careers of those involved in Canada's security agencies and in the state-sanctioned culture industry during the delight of the Cold War. The connections between secret intelligence and culture might appear to be merely coincidental. Both the spies and the arts people worked with words, with symbols and hidden meanings, with ideas. They had regular informal luncheons together in Ottawa. Some members of the intelligence community even found careers in the arts. Less than a decade after defecting, the Russian Igor Gouzenko wrote a pulp fiction Cold War spy novel- for which he received a Governor General's award. And Peter Dwyer, Britain's top security official in North America during World War II, was a playwright who after the war worked in Canada's intelligence community before drafting the founding for the Canada Council and becoming its first director. But Plateaus of Freedom details much more than a casual relationship between security and the arts. As Kristmanson demonstrates, 'the censorship-intelligence-propaganda complex that proliferated in Canada after World War II played a counterpoint between national culture and state security, with the result that freedom, especially intellectual freedom, plateaued on the principle of nationality.' The security and cultural policy measures examined here, from the RCMP investigations at the National Film Board that led to numerous firings, to the harassment of the extraordinary African-American singer and Soviet sympathizer Paul Robeson, 'attest to the fragility and the enduring power of art to effect social change'.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Characterizations of Tracy Philipps

2. Love Your Neighbour: The RCMP and the National Film Board, 1948-1953

3. Remembering To Forget

4. State Security and Cultural Administration: The Case of Peter Dwyer

5. Pulp History: Repossessing the Gouzenko Myth

6. 'I Came To Sing': Paul Robeson on the Border

Conclusion

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4426-2315-2

OCLC:

1013947139