Why am I passionate about this?
I’ve always been fascinated by the political aesthetics and political ferment of the 1960s. As someone born in the 1960s but not of the 1960’s generation, this has allowed for a certain “critical distance” in the ways I approach this period. I'm especially fascinated by the global circulation of cultural protest forms from the 1960s, what the historian Jeremy Suri called a “language of dissent.” The term Global Sixties is now used to explore this evident simultaneity of “like responses across disparate contexts,” such as finding jipis in Chile. In our book, The Walls of Santiago, we locate various examples of what we term the “afterlives” of Global Sixties protest signage.
Eric's book list on Latin American culture and politics in the 1960s-70s
Why did Eric love this book?
Lincoln Cushing was born in pre-revolutionary Cuba to a State Department official with the U.S. Information Agency. I first met Lincoln at a conference on the Global Sixties and he later introduced me to his extensive poster and political graphics collection. This book, one of several by Cushing on political posters, documents Cuba’s extraordinary post-revolutionary poster art, which became renowned the world over in left-wing circles. Cushing has in-depth knowledge of the printing processes involved and was granted direct access to many of the most well-known graphic artists who stayed in Cuba to collaborate with the regime. If you’re looking for the best book discussing Cuba’s revolutionary poster art tradition, this is it.
What I appreciated most about this book is the clarity of the images and the close attention to historical detail that Cushing provides. He organizes the book thematically, focusing especially on the posters produced by OSPAAAL…
1 author picked Revolucion! Cuban Poster Art as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Draws on national archives to present 150 works commissioned by the Cuban government following the Cuban Revolution, in a volume that includes works designed to rally citizens to rebuild, promote massive sugar harvests, support literacy campaigns, and more. Original.