Citizen's Bookshelf . . .
PROPACANDA
More and more it is being recognized by laymen as well as scholars that propaganda is a device that has been, and is being, used with telling effect by Soviet Russia and other governments, for pre-determined results; and that it is distinctly different from other types of publicity and information.
Professor Michael Choukas '27, who offers a popular course, "Public Opinion and Propaganda" to Sociology students, served with the Office of Strategic Services during the war, when his studies were of value in important assignments for the government. In the following briefings on recent books dealing with propaganda, he makes a few suggestions to alumni for help in their evaluation of this all-too-timely subject.
TWELVE DECISIVE BATTLES OF THEMIND. Gorham Munson (The Greystone Press, 1942). The author presents here what he considers the outstanding propaganda "masterpieces" in the history of western culture (from St. Paul to Paul Goebbels). As stimulating as the quotations from original texts are the author's analytical and evaluative comments. Particularly suggestive (for Democracy's counter-propaganda against Russian Communism) is his analysis of the propaganda strength of the Communist Manifesto, the fountainhead of all subsequent Communist propaganda.
PUBLIC OPINION IN SOVIET RUSSIA. Alex Inkeles (Harvard 1951). This is a scholarly study in mass persuasion which describes in detail the propaganda machinery and activity within Russia aimed at fusing theory and the masses. The overpowering, frightening impact upon the individual of a system of mass communication monocratically controlled is made evident on every page as the reader moves from communist propaganda theory, to the Soviet press, radio, film, art of all forms, down to the local, trained, and constantly supervised "agitator" in the remotest hamlet.
JOSEPH GO EBB ELS. Curt Riess (Doubleday, 1948). Though this is written primarily as a biography of Hitler's propaganda minister and in many parts of the book the fictional is undeniably, though artistically, mixed with the historical, the author does not fail to give an adequate picture of the development and organization of the Nazi propaganda machine. The overwhelming success of that machine and its director inside Germany until the final collapse came is highlighted and adequately explained.
UNWRITTEN TREATY. James P. Warburg (Harcourt, Brace, 1946). A short, easy to read account of the efforts of the western world to mobilize its propaganda resources and strike back against the Axis war of nerves. Highly illuminating in its revelation that much of the confusion in Washington during the first two years of the war was due to the inability of high authorities to recognize the fundamental distinction between Information and Propaganda. The final emergence of OWI and OSS out of a long and confusing series of Offices is here seen as the ultimate justification of those who insisted on making that distinction.
UNDERCOVER GIRL. Elizabeth P. MacDonald (Macmillan, 1947). A double reward is in store for the reflective reader of this book, a documented account of OSS agents in the Far East. First, the pleasure of reading (in the safety of one's home) of hair-raising exploits that are not figments of an author's imagination, but actual deeds of patriotic Americans performed under nerve-racking conditions. And second, the awareness (and the moral strength that comes from it) that at this very moment the same strategy of confusion and disunity, of setting up race against race, creed against creed, and class against class, may be diligently pursued by foreign agents in our midst.
PROPAGANDA IN WAR AND CRISIS. Daniel Lerner, editor (George W. Stewart, 1951). The authors of this compendium have been recruited from various fields of social science and though their individual contributions deal with specific aspects of propaganda, taken collectively they tend to clarify for the reader some of the problems confronting American policy-makers today. A great many of the contributions are studies of propaganda operations in World War II.
PUBLIC OPINION AND PROPAGANDA. Leonard W. Doob '29 (Holt. 1948). Not a book to read over a box of candy, or a high-ball, but one definitely to be consulted when Propaganda is viewed as a process involving psychological and sociological forces, or its impact upon both society and the individual as a personality. Almost half of the book is devoted to an analysis of Public Opinion in the Democratic society and the reader who reads this section in conjunction with the book recommended above (Public Opinion in Soviet Russia) will not fail to perceive the enormous psychological chasm that must exist between a citizen of a democracy and one living under totalitarian rule.
HOW TO UNDERSTAND PROPAGANDA. Alfred McC. Lee (Rinehart, 1952). A challenging book, popularly written, intended primarily for the general reader who is the bone of contention of competing propagandists. The organizational methods, the tactics, the appeals propagandists use in this struggle for the citizen's mind (and through it his allegiance and/or pocketbook) are all described in detail and amply illustrated from actual propagandistic operations.
