Hearts and Mines: The US Empire's Culture Industry

Hearts and Mines: The US Empire's Culture Industry

The US security state is everywhere in cultural products: in army-supported news stories, TV shows, and video games; in CIA-influenced blockbusters and comics; and in State Department ads, broadcasts, and websites. Hearts and Mines examines the rise and reach of the US Empire’s culture industry – a nexus between the US’s security state and media firms and the source of cultural products that promote American strategic interests around the world. Building on Herbert I. Schiller’s classic study of US Empire and communications, Tanner Mirrlees interrogates the symbiotic geopolitical and economic relationships between the US state and media firms that drive the production of imperial culture. Tanner Mirrlees’ most exquisite book on the US culture industry starts with a rhetorical question: Is ‘the relationship between the US government and the culture industry one of conflict or symbiosis?’ (p. xiii). Mirrlees answers this with ‘symbiosis’… While Mirrlees’ book is most insightful and illuminating it is also devastatingly pessimistic, perhaps even dystopian.” -- Thomas Klikauer, Western Sydney University, Australia ― European A great achievement and timely contribution to the field, Hearts and Mines will rise to the top of all reading lists on the subject of media and empire, US hegemony, and the political economy of communication. -- Richard Maxwell, co-author of Greening the Media A fascinating, provocative book that invigorates our understanding of the relationship between the culture industries and US empire. Mirrlees detonates prevailing myths about the “liberal bias” of popular culture through a meticulous excavation of how imperial political interests, values, and objectives are woven into the production of news, cinema, and digital gaming. Hearts and Mines will change how you think about the politics of culture. -- Shane Gunster, author of Capitalizing on Culture: Critical Theory for Cultural Studies ― European Journal of Communication "A great achievement and timely contribution to the field, Hearts and Mines will rise to the top of all reading lists on the subject of media and empire, US hegemony, and the political economy of communication."―Richard Maxwell, coauthor of Greening the Media "A fascinating, provocative book that invigorates our understanding of the relationship between the culture industries and US empire. Mirrlees detonates prevailing myths about the "liberal bias" of popular culture through a meticulous excavation of how imperial political interests, values, and objectives are woven into the production of news, cinema, and digital gaming. Hearts and Mines will change how you think about the politics of culture."―Shane Gunster, author of Capitalizing on Culture: Critical Theory for Cultural Studies A fascinating look at the symbiotic relationships between the US security state and the US culture industry, and their drive to promote the US Empire as a way of life through the production, packaging, and selling of cultural commodities in world markets. Tanner Mirrlees is assistant professor in the communication program at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT).