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This chapter focuses on the “soft” aspects of the diplomatic relationship between the United States and Mongolia - public outreach; public affairs; educational exchanges and cultural ties. It also details the growing interaction between Americans who work in Mongolia and Mongolians who live in the United States, marking the foundation of an active Mongolian-American community that has grown significantly in recent years. Education exchanges such as the Fulbright program are discussed and assessed, along with Mongolia's success in accessing funds for cultural support through the Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation. Finally, it discusses the establishment and growth of a large Peace Corps presence in Mongolia.

This chapter deals with the rise of the Philippine Madrigal Singers as ambassadors of a modern nation expanding into an international community and delves into the cultural politics that members of a nationalized ensemble experienced during the New Society of the Marcos regime. It traces the biography of the ensemble's founder, Andrea Veneracion,through the incorporation of the group as a national performing group under the auspices of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

This introductory chapter discusses Leonard Bernstein, the former cultural ambassador of the United States and a composer of several popular musicals and ballets, including West Side Story. This chapter reveals a side to Bernstein that has been largely ignored by the public: his political life. It notes that while many of Bernstein's biographers have concluded that the composer remained apolitical for most of his life, there are archival documents that reveal Bernstein as a politically engaged man.

This chapter is devoted to the 1924 United States tour of United States Navy Band of the Virgin Islands and suggests its deep personal significance for Adams. The tour represents not just the “apogee of the navy band's success” but also the triumph of the social project. The navy band's tour offered a huge marketing opportunity, placing Adams and his band in the role of cultural ambassadors introducing American mainlanders to the islands and inviting these future visitors to the winter oasis. Adams also sees the tour as a significant event in race relations. The band's tour also helped further understanding within the black community itself—notably between West Indians and African Americans, bringing these groups into conversation and inspiring a shared pride.

This introductory chapter examines the politicizing effects of American popular culture during the Cold War era. The U.S. government tried to show that American policies were supportive of the liberation and rise of all people of color worldwide via the use of popular culture. By overemphasizing the extent to which social mobility was achievable for African Americans, the State Department sought to influence diasporic political alignments during the Cold War by sending African American athletes on goodwill tours, placing sports at the forefront of American propaganda efforts. Yet as these athletes become increasingly politicized, they soon sought to produce a counternarrative to the State Department's story of racial progress. Rather than celebrating the suggestion that sports were at the forefront of racial advance, the athletes increasingly came to assert that sports were tied to a racist, oppressive system.

This final chapter provides a reflection of the book. I bring together the key threads from each of the chapters to explore the contemporary context of heritage within the scope of ongoing development, from highways to solar fields. Among my primary points is that development and heritage have become increasingly entangled, yet heritage remains the underdog in this game. The scale of development reflects Turkey’s shifting position in the global landscape, particularly balancing EU agendas with those of Asia and the Middle East. Archaeology has a vexed position within these development schemes, and the practice of US citizens conducting archaeology in Turkey has become increasingly precarious. This is in part due to the entrenched position of the US Department of State not to support archaeological research linked to fieldwork. My goal here is to balance a summary of the book with some of these new themes.