Selling War to America: From the Spanish American War to the Global War on Terror by Terence P. Moran, Eugene Secunda

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Synopsis

Battles are won in combat. Wars are won by winning the hearts and minds of the people. Selling War to America provides a thought-provoking look at the propaganda efforts the U.S. government has exerted to that end. It begins with an examination of the government's campaign to instigate a war with Spain and ends with a review of the methods being used to encourage support for the War Against Terrorism. The book analyzes each of these wars within the context of the techniques used to generate public support, also examining the results of propaganda efforts, both before and after each conflict. From these historical analyses, noting both the blunders and the triumphs of the past century, the authors offer the keys to successfully persuading the American public to support wars that must be fought.

Lies were told and truths withheld because government and military leaders did not trust the American people to make appropriate decisions concerning our national security. The attacks of September 11, 2001, on The World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon have summoned the American people to a war on terrorism. The U.S. government is now trying to mobilize American public opinion to support this war. But this is just the most recent example of how our government has sought to enlist broad public support for the wars it has waged. The job of informing and persuading America to support its war efforts has become increasingly more challenging as media technologies, like instant global coverage of television news and the Internet, reach into every American home.

Analyzes the American government's successes and failures in winning domestic support for theforeign wars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Biography

EUGENE SECUNDA teaches at New York University and is the author of Shifting Time and Space: The Story of Videotape (Praeger, 1991). From 1993 until 1999, Dr. Secunda was Director of Corporate Communications for Central European Media Enterprises Ltd. (CME), a television station group that launched and operated eight privately owned national television stations that reach 100 million people in Central and Eastern Europe.

TERENCE P. MORAN is Professor and Director of the Media Ecology Faculty in the Department of Culture and Communication in the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University.