The most important art movement since the Second World War, Abstract Expressionism revolutionized the way Americans viewed art and culture alike. Drawing on a vast array of scholarly research, David Anfam examines the politically radical spirit of a nucleus of artists who transgressed the traditional forms of American art and faced the tensions of a modernizing society. The author places the movement within a broad cultural background, while at the same time giving a close account of the visual art of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko, as well as the photography of Aaron Siskind and the sculpture of David Smith.