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How Propaganda Works - (Princeton Classics) by Jason Stanley (Paperback)

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Highlights

  • How propaganda undermines democracy and why we need to pay attention Our democracy today is fraught with political campaigns, lobbyists, liberal media, and Fox News commentators, all using language to influence the way we think and reason about public issues.
  • About the Author: Jason Stanley is the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University and the author of Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future and How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them.
  • 376 Pages
  • Political Science, Propaganda
  • Series Name: Princeton Classics

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Book Synopsis



How propaganda undermines democracy and why we need to pay attention

Our democracy today is fraught with political campaigns, lobbyists, liberal media, and Fox News commentators, all using language to influence the way we think and reason about public issues. Even so, many of us believe that propaganda and manipulation aren't problems for us--not in the way they were for the totalitarian societies of the mid-twentieth century. In How Propaganda Works, Jason Stanley demonstrates that more attention needs to be paid. He examines how propaganda operates subtly, how it undermines democracy--particularly the ideals of democratic deliberation and equality--and how it has damaged democracies of the past.

Focusing on the shortcomings of liberal democratic states, Stanley provides a historically grounded introduction to democratic political theory as a window into the misuse of democratic vocabulary for propaganda's selfish purposes. He lays out historical examples, such as the restructuring of the US public school system at the turn of the twentieth century, to explore how the language of democracy is sometimes used to mask an undemocratic reality. Drawing from a range of sources, including feminist theory, critical race theory, epistemology, formal semantics, educational theory, and social and cognitive psychology, he explains how the manipulative and hypocritical declaration of flawed beliefs and ideologies arises from and perpetuates inequalities in society, such as the racial injustices that commonly occur in the United States.

How Propaganda Works shows that an understanding of propaganda and its mechanisms is essential for the preservation and protection of liberal democracies everywhere.



Review Quotes




"How Propaganda Works deserves huge praise and should be read by anyone who cares about politics and language. Its trove of tools and insights is impossible to completely summarise here."---Caleb Lauer, The National

"[A] brilliant and incisive book."-- "Survival: Global Politics and Strategy"

"A book uniquely suited to its time. . . . An example of political philosophy at its finest."-- "Voegelinview"

"A powerful historical account of how propaganda was employed by totalitarian regimes in the past, but it reaches way beyond that. . . . Stanley provides an impressive, holistic view of what propaganda has been historically and how it mutates in the service of today's illiberals. As with every enemy, one needs to be able to recognise it first in order to resist it. And for that reason, it is worth reading Stanley's stellar work on propaganda."---Mateusz Mazzini, New Eastern Europe

"A searching, eclectic, lively and personal book."---Matthew Festenstein, Political Theory

"A timely and important work that contributes a good deal of theoretical understanding to a crucial yet relatively neglected topic of inquiry."---Thomas Cawkwell, Spinwatch

"A timely and insightful investigation into the mechanisms of language, social psychology and economic structure that allow propaganda to go largely unnoticed in a democratic context."---Fahad Y. Al-Sumait, Global Discourse

"As with other books that expose hidden patterns in American political life from a great height (those that come to mind are Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent and Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow), the lofty perspective of How Propaganda Works challenges researchers to fill in gaps with more detailed, particular explanations of how and why."---Stephen Siff, Journalism & Mass Communications Quarterly

"Citing examples ranging from historical racism in America to Citizens United, Stanley's critique of propaganda and ideology will only prove more influential as public and political opinion is further polarized. . . . [A] useful examination of propaganda's pervasiveness."-- "Kirkus Reviews"

"Provides valuable insights into an important and timely subject."---Michiko Kakutani, New York Times Book Review

"Rich and thoughtful. . . . The best way to fight propaganda is to become savvier about how it manipulates, how it actually works, as Stanley does in his work."-- "DeSmog Canada"

"Stanley has produced a highly stimulating book that brings the issue of propaganda to the attention of political philosophers and draws on an impressive range of philosophical and social scientific sources to illustrate his analysis and provide support for his claims. It is bound to be widely discussed and debated."---Jonathan Wolff, Analysis

"Stanley tracks propaganda's history across continents and through decades, illuminating its power to make people vote against their own best interests. And what he has found is [that] the words being used may be as important as the politics behind them."---Nick Osborne, Boston Globe

"The book crackles with brilliant insights and erudition."-- "Bookforum"

"The book's topic is fascinating, and Stanley's discussion of the relevance of theories of slurs for an analysis of large portions of public discourse and flawed ideology and its relation to the ideals of liberal democracy will hopefully bear on future research in this field."---Raphael van Riel, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice

"This is a valuable, one might say indispensable, book in a time when demagogues are succeeding at a level the world has not seen since World War II. I recommend it highly."---Robert J. Sternberg, PsycCRITIQUES



About the Author



Jason Stanley is the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University and the author of Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future and How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them.

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