World War I and Propaganda, by Troy R. E. Paddock, editor

Leiden / Boston: E.J. Brill, 2014. Pp. xiv, 360. Illus., notes, biblio., index. $163.00. ISBN: 9004264566.

The Propaganda Weapon in the Great War

Prof. Paddock (Southern Connecticut) has collected more than a dozen essays by scholars from three continents, all on various aspects of the uses and abuses of propaganda during the Great War. The essays are grouped into four sections. 

The first section has five essays, which deal with British propaganda intended to stimulate and sustain support for the war in Britain, Ireland, Canada, Jamaica, and South Africa. 

The second section addresses various aspects of atrocity and propaganda in the war, with essays titled “The Hun and the Home: Gender, Sexuality and Propaganda in First World War Europe,” "German Propaganda and Prisoners-of-War during World War I", and “Soldiers of Empire: ‘Colonial Troops’ in the Imperial Metropole and Imperial Propaganda, 1914-1918,” this last encompassing British, French, and German efforts.

The third section is titled “Propaganda and Negotiating Occupation,” with three essays addressing issues of territorial claims and the treatment of local peoples in various territories under occupation. 

The fourth and final section deals with propaganda aimed at neutrals, specifically Greece, Spain, and Argentina. 

A volume in the excellent Brill series “History of Warfare ,” while World War I and Propaganda isimportant reading for students of propaganda in general, the individual essays will be of interest to scholars specializing in particular aspects of the war, such as the home front, prisoners-of-war, colonial and dominion participation in the war, colonial troops, and so forth. 

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