Munitions of the mind: a history of propaganda from the ancient world to the present era

353 Pages·2003·2.4 MB·English

by  Philip M. Taylor

taylor 5/23/03 11:07 AM Page 1
Third edition
‘This scholarly, majestic survey, full of perceptive insights provides
conclusive evidence that propaganda is a process unique to human Munitions
communication regardless of time, space and geographic location and
remains an integral part of human discourse. Taylor has done more M
than most to enhance our understanding of this complex subject and
Munitions of the mindforces us to fundamentally rethink how we u
popularly regard propaganda … it transcends traditional disciplines of the mind
and is in a real sense a multdisciplinary tour de force.’ n
Professor David Welch, University of Kent (on first edition)
i
‘A fascinating read and wide-ranging survey which should be essential t
reading for anyone interested in the operation and effects of i
propaganda.’ o
Professor Jeffrey Richards, University of Lancaster (on first edition)
n
A classic work, Munitions of the mindtraces how propaganda has formed s
part of the fabric of conflict since the dawn of warfare, and how in its

broadest definition it has also been part of a process of persuasion at the
o
heart of human communication. Stone monuments, coins, broadsheets,
paintings and pamphlets, posters, radio, film, television, computers and f
satellite communications – propaganda has had access to ever more
complex and versatile media. t
This third edition has been revised and expanded to include a new preface, h
new chapters on the Gulf War, information age conflict in the post-Cold
e
War era, and the world after the terrorist attacks of September 11. It also
offers a new epilogue and comprehensive bibliographical essay.
m
The extraordinary range of this book, as well as the original and cohesive
analysis it offers, makes it an ideal text for all international courses
covering media and communications studies, cultural history, military i
history and politics. It will prove fascinating and accessible to the general n
reader.
d
Philip M. Taylor is Professor of International Communications at the University of
Leeds. His previous publications include War and the media: Propaganda and
persuasion in the Gulf War. Third edition
A history of propaganda
Taylor
from the ancient world
to the present day
Philip M. Taylor
Munitions of the mind
Munitions_00_Prelims 1 4/11/03, 10:38
For Professor Nicholas Pronay
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Munitions
of the Mind
A history of propaganda
from the ancient world
to the present era
Third Edition
Philip M. Taylor
Chapter 9
Manchester University Press
Manchester and New York
distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave
Munitions_00_Prelims 3 4/11/03, 10:38
Copyright © Philip M. Taylor 1990, 1995, 2003
The right of Philip M. Taylor to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First edition published 1990 by P. Stephens
Second edition published 1995 by Manchester University Press, reprinted 1998
and 2002
This edition published 2003 by
Manchester University Press
Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK
and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 1000, USA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
Distributed exclusively in the USA by
Palgrave, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA
Distributed exclusively in Canada by
UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall,
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for
Cu
ISBN 0 7190 6767 7 paperback
This edition first published 2003
11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Typeset in Sabon
by Koinonia, Manchester
Printed in Great Britain
by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow
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1
Contents
Acknowledgements page vii
Preface to the New Edition viii
Introduction Looking Through a Glass Onion: Propaganda,
Psychological Warfare and Persuasion 1
Part One Propaganda in the Ancient World
1 In the Beginning … 19
2 Ancient Greece 25
3 The Glory that was Rome 35
Part Two Propaganda in the Middle Ages
4 The ‘Dark Ages’ to 1066 51
5 The Norman Conquest 62
6 The Chivalric Code 67
7 The Crusades 73
8 The Hundred Years War 81
Part Three Propaganda in the Age of Gunpowder and Printing
9 The Gutenberg Galaxy 87
10 Renaissance Warfare 89
11 The Reformation and the War of Religious Ideas 97
12 Tudor Propaganda 102
13 The Thirty Years War (1618-48) 109
14 The English Civil War (1642-6) 117
15 Louis XIV (1661-1715) 121
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vi Contents
Part Four Propaganda in the Age of Revolutionary Warfare
16 The Press as an Agent of Liberty 129
17 The American Revolution 133
18 The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars 145
19 War and Public Opinion in the Nineteenth Century 158
Part Five Propaganda in the Age of Total War and Cold War
20 War and the Communications Revolution 173
21 The First World War 176
22 The Bolshevik Revolution and the War of Ideologies
(1917-39) 198
23 The Second World War 208
24 Propaganda, Cold War and the Advent of the
Television Age 249
Part Six The New World Information Disorder
25 The Gulf War of 1991 285
26 Information-Age Conflict in the Post-Cold War Era 298
27 The World after 11 September 2001 315
28 Epilogue 320
Bibliographical Essay 325
Index 332
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1
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to the British Academy for financial support aiding the
research for the original edition of this book, and to the following
colleagues for comments and suggestions: Dr Tracy Rihill for her
observations on the ancient sections; Dr Graham Loud for his views on
the medieval period; Professor F. R. Bridge for his comments on the early
modern period. My research students over the years have extended my
knowledge still further: Ilse Howling, Fiona Assersohn, Damien Stafford,
Kate Morris, Dr Nick Cull, Dr Sue Carruthers, Dr Gary Rawnsley, Paul
Rixon, Hossein Afkhami, Steve Bell, and Graham Cook.
A book like this takes many years of gestation and I am delighted
therefore to acknowledge the assistance of many supportive professional
colleagues and friends, especially Dr Tony Aldgate, Dr Steven Badsey,
Philip Bell, Professor Robert Cole, Professor David Culbert, Professor David
Ellwood, Professor Ian Jarvie, Professor John Grenville, Dr Frank
MacGee, David Murdoch, Dr John Ramsden, Professor Jeffrey Richards,
Peter Stead, Dr Richard Taylor, Dr Geoff Waddington, Professor Donald
Cameron Watt, Professor David Welch, Dr Ralph White, Professor John
Young.
My colleagues at the ICS in Leeds also deserve mention for bringing
different disciplinary perspectives to my thinking: Dr David Morrison,
Howard Smith, Dr Brent MacGregor, Dr Simeon Yates, Dr Richard
Howells, Dr Steven Lax, Judith Stamper, Dr Robin Brown. Former
students offered considerable help in various aspects of the research,
especially Debbie Whittaker, Cheryl Johnson and Ian Bremner. But as a
whole, my history students from 1978-90, and my communications studies
students since 1990 will probably never appreciate how significant they
have been in helping to shape my thoughts on this topic. At least my wife,
Sue, knows of her contribution.
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Preface to the New Edition
This book first appeared in 1990, with a second edition in 1995. It was,
until recently, the only single volume history of propaganda from the
ancient world to the present day. No such volume can purport to be
comprehensive, but it has proved necessary to update the final chapters
and to add new ones that embrace the Balkan wars (including the 1999)
Kosovo campaign and, of course, the so-called ‘war’ against international
terrorism. As I write this new preface, the world is gearing up for another
possible war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Leaflets have already been
dropped there. This book attempts to place the conduct of propaganda
during these events within a wider historical context. It retains its main
thesis that propaganda is a much misunderstood word, that it is not
necessarily the ‘bad thing’ that most people think it is. As a process of
persuasion, it is value neutral. Rather, it is the intention behind the
propaganda which demands scrutiny and it is that intention which begs
value judgements not the propaganda itself.
Much has happened since 1995, not least the terrorist attacks on New
York and Washington on 11 September 2001, or ‘9/11’ as it is now
currently being described in shorthand. We are in the middle of another
major propaganda campaign, although it is often difficult for us to identify
it for what it is because we are living through it. News and views are all
around us, speculation is rife, sides are being polarized. Indeed, the issue of
Iraq notwithstanding, we may be on the verge of the greatest propaganda
campaign ever seen as the West struggles to convince the Muslim world
that this is not a war against Islam when many in the Islamic world
genuinely believe that it is. President George W. Bush warns that the
United States is in it ‘for the long haul’. If so, then we will see a new global
struggle for hearts and minds that may be on a par with the Cold War.
This book should, until its next edition, provide some clues as to how to
identify propaganda for what it is, how it has evolved and – most impor-
tantly – to judge for oneself the intentions behind those undertaking it.
Crag Bottom Farm, Two Laws
31 December 2002
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Introduction
Looking Through a Glass Onion:
Propaganda, Psychological Warfare
and Persuasion
From the perspective of our modern information and communica-
tions age, the word ‘propaganda’ continues to imply something
evil. For some it is a cause of wars; for others, it is an even greater
evil than war. Writing in 1926, Lord Ponsonby echoed the senti-
ments of many when he wrote that propaganda involved ‘the
defilement of the human soul [which] is worse than the destruction
of the human body’. For the liberal-minded, its continued
existence remains a cancer threatening to eat away at the body
politic of our increasingly free and globalized society; a disease
which somehow afflicts our individual and collective capacity to
make up our own minds about what is happening in the world
around us. Propaganda, it is felt, forces us to think and do things
in ways we might not otherwise have done had we been left to our
own devices. It obscures our windows on the world by providing
layers of distorting condensation. When nations fight, it thickens
the fog of war. Propaganda thus becomes the enemy of independent
thought and an intrusive and unwanted manipulator of the free
flow of information and ideas in humanity’s quest for ‘peace and
truth’. It is therefore something which democracies, at least, ought
not to do. It suggests the triumph of emotion over reason in a
bureaucratic struggle by the machinery of power for control over
the individual. It is a ‘dirty trick’ utilized by ‘hidden persuaders’,
‘mind manipulators’ and ‘brainwashers’ – Orwellian ‘Big Brothers’
who somehow subliminally control our thoughts in order to con-
trol our behaviour to serve their interests rather than our own.
But who are these propagandists? We all know about Dr
Goebbels, the ‘Evil Genius’ of Nazi propaganda. But where do his
counterparts lie, because lying is, after all, what they do? Since they
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