![]() Nor was foreign relations a side issue for him. But Barks was the single most-read comics author of the period-and one of the country's most-read authors in any genre. It might be tempting to dismiss Barks's comic, which directly challenged core tenets of midcentury foreign policy making, as an anomaly. The first glimpse of Tangkor Wat (Carl Barks, “City of Golden Roofs,” Uncle Scrooge #20, 1958). Footnote 3 This comic book conveyed how much damage those modernizers could do.įigure 1. “Ancient kingdoms and cultures of a beautiful people were about to be steamrolled by modernizers,” Barks wrote. Footnote 2 As the comic's author, Carl Barks, later explained, his tale was meant as a warning. They enrich themselves, and they leave Tangkor Wat in ruins. There, they proceed to disrupt the city's traditional culture and destroy its palace. After taking a steamer to Indochina, they steer sampans up the “Gung Ho River” to a “stretch of wild country,” and find a “hidden city” not seen by outsiders for a thousand years: “Tangkor Wat” ( Figure 1). In a 1957 comic book, the Disney characters Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck, and Donald's nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie make their own journey to Asia. As such, they offered upbeat parables about the United States in the global Cold War. ![]() All told tales of Westerners doing good in the far corners of the world. It competed with Anna and the King of Siam, a novel (1944), turned Tony-winning musical (1951), turned Oscar-winning film (1956). The novel Teahouse of the August Moon (1951), set in Okinawa, became a Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play (1953) and then a movie starring Marlon Brando (1956). ![]() Tom Dooley's Deliver Us from Evil (1956) and William Lederer and Eugene Burdick's The Ugly American (1958) shot up the bestsellers’ lists. The following years brought popular novels, plays, musicals, and films about the continent. The continent had “exploded into the center of American life,” wrote novelist James Michener in 1951.
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