Brigham Young University-Idaho

“The cold war between the Soviet Union and the West was simultaneously a traditional political-military confrontation between empires, between the pax Americana and the pax sovietica, and at the same time an ideological and cultural contest on a global scale and without historical precedent” (1).  So Caute aptly says in the first lines and then demonstrates in his book, The Dancer Defects.  The Dancer Defects examines the effects of the cultural cold war upon the political sphere and vice versa.  By studying the effects of the arts, mainly cinema, music and ballet, in the cultural trade between USSR and the USA, Caute shows the vastness of the cold war between the Soviet Union and the West, extending into all arenas of competition, from military might to chess matches to ballet dancers.  This book demonstrates how various artistic modes “carry their political implications through a contextual web of external factors” (15).  By examining both the Soviet and the West in their varying attempts at propaganda through domination of an artistic field, Caute aptly views both sides of the cold war competition, giving a sense of both the Communist and Western approaches to cold war problems.

            With his exhaustingly thorough approach to the Cold War through cultural events and the media surrounding such events, Caute ably demonstrates the politicalization of drama, music, dance, cinema and all other arts during this culturally polarized time.  The Dancer Defects demonstrates a thorough understanding of Cold War international competition and its affect on history.  His amount of sources is impressive, but sometimes confining.  In the act of proving what he is asserting, Caute seems to forget to assert his assertion, and one can sometimes be left wondering considering the significance of particular events.  More analysis of data would make this book more interesting if not more useful (especially to the emerging student of the Cold War).  Despite this lack of minute analysis, Caute does demonstrate the effects of the cultural battle on the Cold War.  Perhaps there is little analysis of each particular event because they fall so closely to demonstrate what Caute asserts in his introduction: that “the mortal ‘stroke’ which finally buried Soviet Communism was arguably moral, intellectual, and cultural as well as economic and technological,” (1) but more analysis would be nonetheless extremely useful.

            One concern Caute demonstrates in The Dancer Defects is the unilaterally “Americocentricity” prevalent in Cold War studies.  Alarmed by the lack of opposing voices, Caute’s book examines the Cold War through examples of art produced by both Soviet as well as U.S. and Western European artists.  This approach demonstrates a greater truth about the Cold War: it was a war fought on both sides.  Caute shows the U.S. was as involved in using art for propaganda as the Soviet Union, thus incriminating the traditional heroes of the Cold War with hard evidence of the exact crimes the Soviet Union is accused of.   The result of this is a book which causes serious reflection on the differences and similarities of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., a very worthwhile and enlightening activity.

            In short, this book is a worthwhile read for a student of the Cold War who is interested in seeing the effects of Theatre, film, classical and popular music, ballet, and other visual arts on the Cold War.  Also, it makes one reevaluate the role the U.S. played in the Cold War in comparison to the Soviet Union.  With meticulous research and short but meaningful analysis, Caute has assembled a worthwhile book, and leaves room for the reader to look forward to his “findings in the fields of fiction, literary criticism, political theory and historiography [which] are now scheduled for a subsequent volume” (vii).