Pavilions of Plenty: Exhibiting American Culture Abroad in the 1950s

Pavilions of Plenty: Exhibiting American Culture Abroad in the 1950s. By Robert H. Haddow Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998. x + 260 pp. Bibliographical references, notes, and index. $37.50. ISBN 1560987057.

Reviewed by Jacqueline McGlade

In Pavilions of Plenty, art historian Robert H. Haddow chronicles the transformation of government-sponsored trade fairs and exhibitions from cultural exchanges to propaganda weapons during the early years of the Cold War. According to Haddow, trade fairs became the vehicles most favored by government administrators and business supporters to counter communism through the promotion and transplantation of democratic …