To hell with culture: Fascism, rhetoric, and the war for democracy

To Hell With Culture was Herbert Read’s most concise exposition of his aesthetic politics, but it was a work moulded by the particular context in which he wrote. Starting life as a contribution to a series of pamphlets pondering the shape of Britain in the aftermath of the Second World War, Read drew on a deep reading of socialist intellectual history to plot a new, radical path for democracy. His text was a necessary utopia, presenting an outcry against the cultural barbarities of both the capitalist and totalitarian superpowers, and entering a battle of ideas to determine the shape of post-war Europe.