Improvised Continent: Pan-Americanism and Cultural Exchange

How does a country in the process of becoming a world power prepare its citizens for the responsibilities of global leadership? In Improvised Continent, Richard Cándida Smith answers this question by illuminating the forgotten story of how, over the course of the twentieth century, cultural exchange programs, some run by the government and others by philanthropies and major cultural institutions, brought many of the most important artists and writers of Latin America to live and work in the United States.

Improvised Continent is the first book to focus on cultural exchange inside the United States and how Americans responded to Latin American writers and artists. Moving masterfully between the history of ideas, biography, institutional history and politics, and international relations, and engaging works in French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese, Cándida Smith synthesizes over seventy years of Pan-American cultural activity in the United States.

The stories behind Diego Rivera's murals, the movies of Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the poetry of Gabriela Mistral, the photography of Genevieve Naylor, and the novels of Carlos Fuentes--these works and artists, along with many others, challenged U.S. citizens about their place in the world and about the kind of global relations the country's interests could allow. Improvised Continent provides a profoundly compassionate portrayal of the Latin American artists and writers who believed their practices might create a more humane world.

Author: Richard Candida Smith, Richard Cándida Smith
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 09/28/2017
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.60lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.20w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780812249422

Review Citation(s):
Choice 03/01/2018

About the Author
Richard Candida Smith is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He is author of several books, including The Modern Moves West: California Artists and Democratic Culture in the Twentieth Century, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.