Propaganda for War: How the United States Was Conditioned to Fight the Great War of 1914-1918

very good book and good service thank you

Interesting history

The book, “Propaganda for War,” by Stewart Halsey Ross is well written with many sources and notes. I had read Thomas Fleming's book "The Illusion of Victory," so I was aware of the propaganda during the Wilson administration before and after the war. I should make a note that Mr. Fleming's book was not a book of Propaganda, it was a book about America during World War One, propaganda being only a part. The one event that changed in this book was the reason the Lusitania went down so fast. Mr. Fleming states from his sources, that the reason the ship went down so fast was the ship was carrying 4,200 cases of rifle cartridges, and 1,250 cases of 3.3-inch shrapnel shells, along with other contraband and foodstuffs. The torpedoed ship exploded the black powder in the shells, Mr Ross states from his sources, the ship went down because the torpedo ignited a volatile mixture of coal dust and oxygen in the starboard coal bunker. Mr. Ross wrote that in 1995, Mr. Robert D. Ballard, a famous man for his underwater investigations of the sunken liner Titanic and the German battleship, Bismarck, made known his team's findings during extensive surveys and photographic analysis of the Lusitania wreck in “Exploring the Lusitania”. Where John Light ( underwater investigator) found in 1962 a large gaping hole caused by secondary explosion ostensibly occurred, Ballard wrote that he found none. My only point is, it seems Mr. Ross did a great deal of research for his book.From the back cover: We now know that Great Britain’s first act of war was on August 4, 1914 was to cut the two trans-Atlantic cables that connected Berlin to New York City.We now know that the British organized a massive covert propaganda apparatus with the goal of dragging American into the war on the side of the Allies.We now know that America’s involvement in 1917 as a belligerent in Europe was a tragic misstep by anglophile Woodrow Wilson, that had profound implications not only for the United States but for Europe as well, ensuring an even more catastrophic reprise in 1939. When Wilson himself declared, “We all know that this was a commercial war,” in September 1919.We now know that the alleged atrocities by the Germans army in Belgium were all lies.We now know that America’s professed neutrality in the early years of the conflict was a hoax.We now know that the Cunard passenger liner RMS Lusitania doubled as a munitions ship. And purposefully steamed into harm’s way in May 1915.The lesson is forgotten, propaganda for war repeats, and history repeats.My thoughts are, Presently we are fed propaganda 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It’s not the British this time, it is Americans. I wonder how many people realize that they are brainwashed by TV and other media sources every day.Wilson’s presidency was the beginning of the destruction of the constitution and the rights of Americans.At the top of this post I mentioned the book, "The Illusion of Victory," would recommend it highly

Ross provides an excellent summary of how WWI was promoted in the US, starting with the British propaganda effort. By the time Woodrow Wilson decided to bring the US into the war, the American public was ready. The British advertising campaign was the most comprehensive and successful effort to sell a war to another country ever seen; never before had it been attempted, never before had it been necessary. It worked better than anyone could have expected.After the US got into the war in 1917 the homegrown propaganda campaign dwarfed the British effort. The scope and scale of the US effort was astonishing, limited not only to pro-war messaging but a full range of press censorship and violent suppression of labor organizing and political dissent. WWI was the midwife of modern Propaganda Ministries, and Ross has assembled a comprehensive survey of how it was done.