Money for Art: The Tangled Web of Art and Politics in American Democracy
David Smith's deft and penetrating study of the National Endowment for the Arts places the turbulent history of that agency in the larger context of precisely these fundamental questions. In the process, he helps us to think more clearly about an even more fundamental and contested question: the place of art in modern American life. (Wilfred M. McClay, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga)David A. Smith has written a thoughtful, informed, and non-partisan history of one of the most tortuous areas of American cultural life: the proper place of government support of the arts. An excellent and clarifying contribution to an issue that generally receives more obfuscation than insight. (Roger Kimball, author of Counterpoints)A readable, straightforward account. (CHOICE)