Propaganda

Old classics should never be neglected and the shelves of a serious student of terrorism should hold them. The Institute has frequently cited Jacque Ellul and his classic Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes for good reason – even the Soviets liked it, telling Canadian Communist party members on a training course there in the 1970s that Ellul was “dialectically wrong, but still very good.” The Random House 1965 edition is still occasionally seen on bookshelves and is worth hunting for. Ellul carefully maps out what is, and is not, propaganda and how it is transmitted. For the practitioner of psychological warfare, Ellul also gives excellent advice on how to put a stick through the spokes of a propagandist’s wheels.