Jacques Ellul: Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1973)
English language
Published Jan. 12, 1973
Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1965/1973) (French: Propagandes; original French edition: 1962) is a book on the subject of propaganda by French philosopher, theologian, legal scholar, and sociologist Jacques Ellul. This book appears to be the first attempt to study propaganda from a sociological approach as well as a psychological one. It presents a sophisticated taxonomy for propaganda, including such paired opposites as political–sociological, vertical–horizontal, rational–irrational, and agitation–integration. The book contains Ellul's theories about the nature of propaganda to adapt the individual to a society, to a living standard, and to an activity aiming to make the individual serve and conform.
On these times of information warfare I thought this classic would give some good historical view, which it partly did but on the otherhand it seems partly really outdated. And I love Ellul's take on technology so maybe my expectations were a bit too high. Slow read for me and still didn't finish it.
