A provocative and compelling book that explores the complex relationship between democracy and avant-garde art, offering a surprising new perspective on the critical role that the arts play in democratic governance at home and abroad.

• Covers a broad range of topics, from disputes over public art, copyright, and obscenity, to the operations of the House Un-American Activities Committee during the Cold War
• Highlights detailed and at times shocking debates over the role of the rebellious artist within society

Caroline Levine is Associate Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A specialist on relations between art and politics, she is author of The Serious Pleasures of Suspense, which won the Perkins Prize for the best contribution to narrative studies in 2004. She has co-edited three collections of essays, including a special issue of The Journal of Popular Culture on the politics of pleasurable reading, and has published articles on a range of writers and artists, including John Ruskin, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Charlotte Brontë, Andreas Gursky, and Richard Serra.