propaganda
Four dangerous visionary writers
Simon Ings examines the lives of Maxim Gorky, Maurice Barrès, Gabriele D’Annunzio and Ding Ling, whose propagandism helped shape – and misshape – the 20th century
Propaganda from the Russian Front: The People Immortal, by Vasily Grossman, reviewed
On its posthumous publication in 1980, Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate was widely compared with War and Peace. For all…
Lord Northcliffe’s war of words
Andrew Lycett on the pugnacious British press baron dedicated to fighting the first world war through newsprint
Putin’s mistake was to discard the velvet glove
To study international politics since the turn of the century has been, in large part, to study the changing nature…
Why more and more Russians are backing the war
Why Russian support for the war will keep growing
What TV is telling Russians – and why they believe it
What Russians watch — and believe
Russian memoirs are prone to a particular form of angst
Perhaps the secret to understanding Russian history lies in its grammar: it lacks a pluperfect tense. In Latin, English and…
Cambridge University is kowtowing to China
Last month, writing elsewhere, I quoted the website of the China Centre at Jesus College, Cambridge: ‘Under the leadership of…
The beauty of Soviet anti-religious propaganda
Deep in the guts of Russian library stacks exists what remains — little acknowledged or discussed — of a dead…
The history of Britain’s secret war on Napoleon is astonishing, inspiring and disturbing
Laws and sausages, we know, are better not seen in the making; and neither are ‘black ops’. Waterloo may have…
The art of persuasion
It’s hard to admire communist art with an entirely clear conscience. The centenary of the October revolution, which falls this…
Joseph Goebbels: Hitler’s ‘little doctor’ was devoted unto death
It is ironic that this weighty biography of Hitler’s evil genius of a propaganda minister is published on the day…
How independence will impoverish Scottish culture
Daniel Jackson foresees an impoverished cultural landscape for an independentScotland, with artists forced to do Salmond’s bidding
Vladimir Putin’s empire of lies
Putin’s answer to the destruction of Flight MH17 has been more propaganda. In Russia, at least, it seems to be working
The NHS ‘wellbeing’ monkey deserves to die
My young daughter has a furry beaver — lifelike in all but its eyes, which to me seem cold and dead.…
When Mussolini came knocking on Hollywood’s door
John Ford was the first of the five famous Hollywood film directors to go to war. He went expecting to…
Sochi Olympics: Why picking on gays has backfired so horribly for Vladimir Putin
Russia’s thuggish President has picked on the wrong minority
