Art and entertainment constitute America’s second-largest export. Most Americans—96%, to be exact—are somehow involved in the arts, whether as audience participants, hobbyists, or via broadcast, recording, video, or the Internet. The contribution of the arts to the U.S. economy is stunning: the nonprofit arts industry alone contributes over 857 billion dollars per year, and America’s fine and performing arts enjoy world-class status.

 Despite its size, quality, and economic impact, the arts community is not articulate about how they serve public interests, and few citizens have an appreciation of the myriad of public policies that influence American arts and culture. The contributors to this volume argue that U.S. policy can—and should—support the arts and that the arts, in turn serve a broad rather than an elite public. Indeed, increased support for the arts and culture equals good economic and trade policy; it also contributes to the quality of life and community, and helps sustain the creativity of American artists and organizations.

By encouraging policy-makers to systematically start investigating the crucial role and importance of all of the arts in the United States, The Arts and Public Purpose moves the field forward with fresh ideas, new concepts, and important new data.

The arts and creative sector is one of the nation's broadest, most important, and least understood social and economic assets, encompassing both nonprofit arts and cultural organizations, for-profit creative companies, such as advertising agencies, film producers, and commercial publishers, and community-based artistic activities. The thirteen essays in this timely book demonstrate why interest in the arts and creative sector has accelerated in recent years, and the myriad ways that the arts are crucial to the social and national agenda and the critical issues and policies that relate to their practice. Leading experts in the field show, for example, how arts and cultural policies are used to enhance urban revitalization, to encourage civic engagement, to foster new forms of historic preservation, to define national identity, to advance economic development, and to regulate international trade in cultural goods and services.

Illuminating key issues and reflecting the rapid growth of the field of arts and cultural policy, this book will be of interest to students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, to arts educators and management professionals, government agency and foundation officials, and researchers and academics in the cultural policy field.