Star-SpangledTo the Editor:David Oshinsky’s erudite review of “The Free World,” by Louis Menand (May 16), points to the bright spots in American life that are often overlooked in histories of the early Cold War. As comprehensive as both the book and the review may be, one wonders about the many significant factors that are omitted in Oshinsky’s review, yet also contributed to America’s cultural ascent. Jazz continued to thrive and add to America’s renown through Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Benny Goodman. Even television brought political conventions into people’s homes, while making and unmaking political careers through the Checkers speech and the Kennedy-Nixon debates. There was certainly a self-conscious yet reasoned examination of American society through social criticism in books like “The Lonely Crowd,” “The Status Seekers,” “The Affluent Society,” “White Collar,” “The Other America” and “The Feminine Mystique.”

Source: International New York Times May 28, 2021 09:00 UTC