Introduction xii
purpose of spreading a doctrine; subsequently, it was applied to the doctrine
itself, and lastly to the methods employed in undertaking the dissemination.1
Between the 17th and 20th centuries, we hear comparatively little about
“propaganda” as a term. It had but a limited use and, though ill-flavored, was
largely unfamiliar. During the English Civil Wars (1642–1651) and the break-
down of the censorship and licensing system established under the Tudors
and early Stuarts, propaganda by pamphlet and newsletter became a regular
accessory to military action, Oliver Cromwell’s Parliamentarian army being
concerned nearly as much with the spread of radical religious and political
doctrines as with victory in the field.
The employment of propaganda increased steadily throughout the 18th and
19th centuries, particularly at times of ideological struggle, as in the American
Revolutionary War (War of Independence; 1775–1783) and the French Revo-
lutionary Wars (1792–1802). From the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the out-
break of World War I in 1914, Europe witnessed many changes. They included
a range of smaller revolutionary and independence struggles, the unification of
a powerful new Prussian-led Germany (which defeated and humiliated France
in 1870), and the emergence of simmering tensions in the Balkans as the weak-
ening Ottoman Empire retreated to the edges of Europe. But there were no
great wars of revolution on a French or American scale.
Industrialization, too, played its part now in the advance of propaganda.
In the most advanced societies, large and growing print circulations, during
the late 18th and 19th centuries, together with improving literacy created
new audiences for messages of all kinds. As consumer societies developed,
so did a demand for greater political and economic rights—fertile territory
for propaganda. Historically, modern propaganda can be seen as a product of
post-industrialization when an increasingly literate public become consumers
and demand greater political and economic rights. But equally, propaganda was
associated with periods of stress and turmoil during which violent controversy
over doctrine accompanied the use of force. In the struggle for power, propa-
ganda is an instrument to be used by those who want to secure or retain power
just as much as by those wanting to displace them. The relationship between
propaganda and war is the theme that binds this book together. Since the late
19th century, war propaganda and the mass media have undergone a long,
intricate relationship. Indeed, the history of changing communication technol-
ogy is often pegged to certain conflicts.
The use of war propaganda dates back 2,400 years to the Chinese general
Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Sun Tzu, writing around the late sixth century BC,
knew all about the power of persuasion: “For to win one hundred victories
in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy with-
out fighting is the acme of skill.” World War I, however, marked a decisive
turning point in the use made of state-sponsored propaganda. The Great War
witnessed its first use by governments in an organized, quasi-scientific man-
ner. As a result, between 1914 and 1918, the wholesale employment of pro-
paganda as a weapon of modern warfare served to transform its meaning into
