All Art Is Propaganda
The essential collection of critical essays from a twentieth-century master and author of 1984. As a critic, George Orwell cast a wide net. Equally at home discussing Charles Dickens and Charlie Chaplin, he moved back and forth across the porous borders between essay and journalism, high art and low. A frequent commentator on literature, language, film, and drama throughout his career, Orwell turned increasingly to the critical essay in the 1940s, when his most important experiences were behind him and some of his most incisive writing lay ahead. All Art Is Propaganda follows Orwell as he demonstrates in piece after piece how intent analysis of a work or body of work gives rise to trenchant aesthetic and philosophical commentary. With masterpieces such as "Politics and the English Language" and "Rudyard Kipling" and gems such as "Good Bad Books," here is an unrivaled education in, as George Packer puts it, "how to be interesting, line after line." With an Introduction from Keith Gessen.
Propaganda Prints
Propaganda Prints reviews the history, cultural diversity and artistic legacy of art produced in the service of social and political change from ancient times to the present day. The author presents the arts of state control, of opposition, of revolution, of advertising, politics and self-promotion in their historical contexts, with three hundred images to evoke some of the dreams and concerns which have driven humanity through the last five thousand years. The Ancient Mesopotamians are there with the Romans, the Crusaders, the Normans, the Victorians, the Suffragettes, the Nazis and the Hippies. The American, French, Russian, Mexican, Chinese and Cuban revolutions all contribute as do many, far too many, wars. From Gutenberg's printing press to You Tube, from Alexander to Obama, this review of propaganda art reflects the best and the worst of us, and offers the pictures by way of consolation.
Propaganda Art in the 21st Century
How to understand propaganda art in the post-truth era—and how to create a new kind of emancipatory propaganda art. Propaganda art—whether a depiction of joyous workers in the style of socialist realism or a film directed by Steve Bannon—delivers a message. But, as Jonas Staal argues in this illuminating and timely book, propaganda does not merely make a political point; it aims to construct reality itself. Political regimes have shaped our world according to their interests and ideology; today, popular mass movements push back by constructing other worlds with their own propagandas. In Propaganda Art in the 21st Century, Staal offers an essential guide for understanding propaganda art in the post-truth era. Staal shows that propaganda is not a relic of a totalitarian past but occurs today even in liberal democracies. He considers different historical forms of propaganda art, from avant-garde to totalitarian and modernist, and he investigates the us versus them dichotomy promoted in War on Terror propaganda art—describing, among other things, a fictional scenario from the Department of Homeland Security, acted out in real time, and military training via videogame. He discusses artistic and cultural productions developed by such popular mass movements of the twenty-first century as the Occupy, activism by and in support of undocumented migrants and refugees, and struggles for liberation in such countries as Mali and Syria. Staal, both a scholar of propaganda and a self-described propaganda artist, proposes a new model of emancipatory propaganda art—one that acknowledges the relation between art and power and takes both an aesthetic and a political position in the practice of world-making.
Facing Unpleasant Facts
Essays by the author of 1984 on topics from “remembrances of working in a bookshop [to] recollections of fighting in the Spanish Civil War” (Publishers Weekly). George Orwell was first and foremost an essayist, producing throughout his life an extraordinary array of short nonfiction that reflected—and illuminated—the fraught times in which he lived. “As soon as he began to write something,” comments George Packer in his foreword, “it was as natural for Orwell to propose, generalize, qualify, argue, judge—in short, to think—as it was for Yeats to versify or Dickens to invent.” Facing Unpleasant Facts charts Orwell’s development as a master of the narrative-essay form and unites such classics as “Shooting an Elephant” with lesser-known journalism and passages from his wartime diary. Whether detailing the horrors of Orwell’s boyhood in an English boarding school or bringing to life the sights, sounds, and smells of the Spanish Civil War, these essays weave together the personal and the political in an unmistakable style that is at once plainspoken and brilliantly complex. “Best known for his late-career classics Animal Farm and 1984, George Orwell—who used his given name, Eric Blair, in the earliest pieces of this collection aimed at the aficionado as well as the general reader—was above all a polemicist of the first rank. Organized chronologically, from 1931 through the late 1940s, these in-your-face writings showcase the power of this literary form.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
Comic Art Propaganda
As one of the most simple, effective and powerful forms of communication, it comes as no surprise that comic art has been misappropriated by governments, self-interest groups, do-gooders and sinister organisations to spread their messages. World War Two comic book propaganda with Superman, Batman, and Captain America bashing up cartoon enemies was so ubiquitous that there was barely a US comic untainted by the war effort. And theres no shortage of examples from the other side of the globe. This book examines every kind of propaganda, and how positive or pernicious messages have been conveyed in the pages of comic books over the last 100 years. Subject areas include racism and xenophobia, antidrugs comics, pro-drugs comics and religious comics. Plus, there is a look at social programming; how gender roles were re-enforced in comic book stereotyping, and how comics broke free to produce a whole slew of gay superheroes, no matter how ham-fistedly written. This book is a fascinating global, visual history of some of the most contentious, outrageous, unbelievably unusual and politically charged comics ever published. Written by renowned comics historian and author, Fredrik Strömberg.
