The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century

The Cultural Front charts the extraordinary upsurge of cultural activity and theory in America that began during the Great Depression and embraced Disney animators and proletarian novelists alike, alongside Orson Welles, Duke Ellington, John Dos Passos, C. L. R James and Billie Holiday. Spawned by the Popular Front of the Communist Party, it grew to encompass virtually every aspect of high and popular art in the US, instigating one of the most culturally rich and exciting periods in American history.

Michael Denning teaches American Studies at Yale University. He is the author of Mechanic Accents, Cover Stories, Culture in the Age of Three Worlds, and The Cultural Front.