What Orwell Didn't Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics

Three years before he published 1984, Orwell wrote Politics and the English Language, an attack on the use of political speech ""in defense of the indefensible."" That essay (reprinted in full) serves as the point of departure for these 20 articles on modern methods of American propaganda, which editor and freelance journalist Szanto calls ""subtle, insidious, sugarcoated, focus-grouped, and market-tested."" Contributors are consistently thought-provoking, but happily diverse in background and concern: Farnaz Fassihi, senior Middle East correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, takes on war reporting; USC journalism professor Martin Kaplan explains why he refers to television news as ""the Infotainment Freak Show""; and cognitive scientist George Lakoff discusses the psychological principles manipulated to goose the efficacy of political messages. An epilogue from moneyed progressive George Soros (whose Open Society Institute co-sponsored the publication) expresses hope that this book will ""inoculate the public against false arguments""; timed to coincide with the 2008 presidential election, Szanto's collection should indeed resonate with Americans increasingly put out by the obfuscating tactics of many political campaigns (and careers).