Adds a new and important dimension to our understanding of Soviet wartime propaganda. Berkhoff explains as no one before how Stalin and his government wished to present the war to the people. Using previously unexamined materials, he shows that the propagandists who sold the war effort understood the struggle in an entirely different way than did those who ran the war machine itself. He also skillfully analyzes the decisions and policies of Stalin's message-makers and chronicles the contradictions and confusion that resulted from some of their most ill-conceived directives. -- Jeffrey Brooks, author of Thank You, Comrade Stalin! Soviet Public Culture from Revolution to Cold War
Karel C. Berkhoff is Senior Researcher at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
I can only recommend this admirable work by an outstanding
historian. Motherland in Danger is indispensable for anybody
interested in the history of World War II, of propaganda, or of the
Soviet experience...Accessible to undergraduates, it will stimulate
historiographical debate among graduate students and scholars. Do
not miss it. -- Mark Edele * American Historical Review *
Motherland in Danger is a superb contribution to our
understanding of the Soviet home front and the role played more
broadly by propaganda in Soviet history and the comparative history
of the Second World War. -- Claire P. Kaiser * Nationalities Papers
*
[Berkhoff] persuasively argues that, contrary to the popular
notion that the war loosened Soviet cultural and political
controls, the goal of mobilizing citizens led to greater
centralization and censorship of information...He contends that
censorship and centralization led to largely bland, uninspiring,
and uninformative propaganda, which succeeded in its goal of
mobilizing the population only because Nazi Germany's war aims and
practices left Soviet citizens no other choice but to resist.
Berkhoff shows that, nevertheless, postwar (and post-Soviet)
Russians largely subscribe to the myths created by wartime
propaganda, indicating its enduring legacy. -- K. D. Slepyan *
Choice *
Adds a new and important dimension to our understanding of Soviet
wartime propaganda. Berkhoff explains as no one before how
Stalin and his government wished to present the war to the people.
Using previously unexamined materials, he shows that the
propagandists who sold the war effort understood the struggle in an
entirely different way than did those who ran the war machine
itself. He also skillfully analyzes the decisions and policies of
Stalin's message-makers and chronicles the contradictions and
confusion that resulted from some of their most ill-conceived
directives. -- Jeffrey Brooks, author of Thank You, Comrade
Stalin! Soviet Public Culture from Revolution to Cold War
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