Government arts funding and the culture wars

Over at book/daddy, Jerome Weeks provides an insightful and informative review of Money for Art: The Tangled Web of Art and Politics in American Democracy. It's worth a read, both for his take on the book as well as his insights on the history of American funding for the arts. Read the first part of the article here.

"It's dead certain that our culture wars will rage again.

David A. Smith, a senior lecturer in history at Baylor University, does not actually make that prediction in his book, Money for Art: The Tangled Web of Art and Politics in American Democracy. But it's there. It's there because, according to Dr. Smith, the culture wars have never really ceased fire. Federal support of the arts has been the trigger for an argument, he believes, that has flared on and off practically since the origins of the republic. Dr. Smith's book is the first to study government arts funding in this light."