THE INVASION FROM MARS

by Dr. Had-ley Cantril '2B, Associate Professor ofPsychology, Princeton University, PrincetonUniversity Press, Princeton, N. J., 1940,xv-f-228 pages. $2.50.

ON SUNDAY EVENING, October 30, 1938, Orson Welles went on the air over The Columbia Broadcasting System with H. Kock's adapted version of War of the Worlds by the irrepressible H. G. Wells. The Invasion ofMars contains the complete script of the play, the reactions of the radio audience and an analysis of these reactions.

This incredible story of another planet converging its fantastic attack on the Jersey area makes exciting reading. On that Hallowe'en, thousands of people heard a series of "news bulletins" that purported to describe a colossal invasion from Mars. The Mercury Theatre was on the air, and the "extra-terrestial" metal casing was unwinding monsters in the Jersey field. Uncritical listeners wailed, called their friends, prayed to God, and dashed in their motors through the night air at headlong speeds. "At least a million of them," state Cantril, "were frightened or disturbed."

Such genuine panic threw open the gates of research to the alert experimenters of the Princeton Radio Project. Adroit, understanding interviewers went quickly to talk with the radio listeners themselves. No glib news commentators curbed the investigators. Actual representative case studies vitalize Cantril's pages.

Such methods of research in the analysis of panic are not only novel, but highly significant. Here is a living exhibit of how lack of education, anxiety, feelings of insecurity and a dull, monotonous life contribute to gullibility. The book examines the soil in which the seeds of propaganda flourish. Students of publie opinion will take fresh heed of this additional evidence of radio's important influence. Here is a plain object lesson of radio's potentiality of terrorizing its listeners. Standards of judgment used by the more critical persons, however, afford bracing encouragement. The data show that the single outstanding corrective against gullibility is the degree of the listener's education. Although we are hopeful that education makes many other contributions, we are grateful that it also diminishes gross credulity.

As a report of a carefully planned research, the book will command the respect of social scientists. General readers, too, will find the account informative and stimulating.