Behind the Golden Curtain: A View of the USA

from the inside cover:"The Iron Curtain became visible when the Communists built the Berlin wall; the Chinese have made the Bamboo Curtain obvious enough. But nobody sees the "Golden Curtain," though it's effect can be just as perilous. Thus goes the thinking of Susan Cooper and in this book she presents an arresting view of the United States as a country astonishingly cast off from the influence and understanding of the outside world. Images of affluence and a confident Great Society mask the undercurrents of emotional and physical violence symbolized by the assassination of President Kennedy, and create misunderstandings abroad of the compulsions that drive Americans to lose themselves in sport, religion, and the anti-intellectual attitudes fo the "regular guy." And how much does the American know about himself, or care about other countries except as markets or missile sites? The unusual theme of an introverted, half-known America, here documented in a highly personal and vivid way, should be of chanllenging interest to readers on both sides of the Atlantic...."