Nanette reignites storytelling when magic and storytelling are forbidden while walking a dangerous line with her sister.

E.S. Barrison weaves a story of relationships in times of suppression of truth and how destructive state-sanctioned propaganda can be.

This story rang hard on familiar stories of real-world issues placed in a magical world, and the danger of being someone willing to go against the religious state; touching on trauma, police brutality, and the rising cost of medicine.

This novella has a lot of interesting points on the power of stories.

Given the circumstances, returning to the Star Wars universe feels natural! As a historian, I have spent much time looking at recruitment, public information, and propaganda posters from the 20th century.

These items, regardless of their overt content, always provide great insight into the wider context of their creation. This is something that Pablo Hidalgo reproduces to a remarkable level in this book. With images that bear many of the hallmarks and visual cues of our own world and then placed within a fictional context, this book ticks all of my boxes and is an absolute treat.

I loved this book because it soberly and accurately told us about the real people who are caught up in war events and whom we do not normally see in books about war heroes.

I found the story of how the relationship between the young recruit and his love develops as heartbreaking as it was satisfying. It also taught me much about the world of flying war planes and actual war at the level of human suffering.

This novel also helped me write my war novel. 

This book is absolutely wild. It purports to be an adaption of an over-the-top gorefest of a movie, plagued by conspiracy theories. Full of footnotes and behind-the-scenes anecdotes and autobiographical details about how the book itself came to be, it not only supposedly adapts a film but tells a far darker hidden story and is overall a lot of dark and spooky fun.

I read this classic, published in 1957 when I was in high school. It was perhaps the first critique of advertising, and I found it fascinating.

Packard identified eight “compelling needs” that advertisers promise products will fulfill. Years later, I recognized how some of these needs were used to sell addictive products.

Although he didn’t address the objectification of women, he opened my eyes to the manipulative power of advertisers and the subconscious meaning of ads.  

Although written in the 1960s, this book in uncannily timely. It outlines how the society we live in is shaped by propaganda--not just political propaganda, but also a wider propaganda for certain "way of life" that seems very individualistic but is in fact the opposite. It helps not only in recognizing propaganda, but also in escaping it as much as possible.

This book appeals to me as both an academic and an artist. In my art practice, I critique gender stereotypes in commercial and commodity culture, and this book provides a brief history of advertising and why it is bad for societies, followed by brilliant creative case studies of activist artists and artworks.

It contains lots of images of poster campaigns and graphic designs that uncover the ways that adverts play with our fears and desires–a subject that I talk about in relation to body and beauty ideals in my book. The artists in this book are very clever and hugely talented, so the book is a constant source of inspiration.

There’s no magic wand, no defensive armor, vaccine, or potion that can inoculate people against the influence of propaganda. But learning about propaganda is essential for people of all ages who want to hold on to their democracy in the face of threats. What will surprise you when you read this classic work, written in 1928, is how timely it remains. Bernays anticipates the rise of influencers and memes because he knows that people rely on thought leaders for most of their opinions and beliefs about the world. But the most important feature of this book is what he has to say about propaganda and democracy. Bernays convinces you that propaganda is not inherently evil, and he even makes the case that propaganda is necessary for democratic societies to flourish. 

This transformative book explores the early years of the Cuban Revolution from the ground up, arguing that revolutionary leadership constructed hegemony gradually—gaining popular support by creating a “grand narrative” that envisioned the Revolution as an opportunity for spiritual and political redemption. Guerra shows that leaders also censured alternative narratives and voices that challenged their monopoly over power. And because government organizations deputized citizens to defend the state, they inadvertently created “unintended dissidents,” as well as vast numbers of supporters. These arguments and more make this exceptional book a controversial one as well.  

Nick Cull’s book on how British propaganda was used to influence neutral American opinion towards supporting the Allies in the early part of the Second World War, I think, remains one of the most important books analyzing propaganda activities in the twentieth century. Clearly, the US entry into the Second World War was a significant moment, not only for the war itself but also for shaping the world order in which we continue to live today. 

Cull’s very readable and engaging account of British operations between September 1939 and December 1941 outlines how propagandists sought to influence news reporting of war events such as the Dunkirk evacuation and the Battle of Britain, amongst others. I think Cull’s broader definition of propaganda encapsulating broader influence in Hollywood through the work of people such as Alexander Korda, as well as through covert operations, is an approach that has really changed the way… show more.