This is a study of government publicity activities in Britain between the wars. Mariel Grant focuses on the development of public relations bureaux and information services in Whitehall. She shows how during the inter-war period publicity came to be regarded as a legitimate and necessary task of democractic government, and that although government departments pursued propaganda activities with different motives and divergent persepectives, they adopted a similar approach to both the tool and their audience. Dr Grant explores a variety of differnt issues and campaigns, including the Post Office's attempts to make the public `telephone conscious', the Ministry of Health's sex education efforts, the multi-departmental and protracted `Drink More Milk' campaign. She shows how the experiences and developments of the 1920s and 1930s contributed to the decision in 1939 to establish the propaganda ministry designed to manage wartime publicity and shape public opinion. The book offers valuable insights into the nature of propaganda and its management, and contributes to our understanding of the changing role of the state in modern British society.
Reviews
presents an insightful analysis of the relationship between the British government and propaganda during the interwar years. Well researched and conceptually sound. * Choice *
Grant's book represents the first systematic study of peacetime publicity arrangements in the interwar period. She adeptly handles the intrinsic difficulties posed by such a study through a comparative approach. * History *
it is to Grant's credit that she has undertaken the task of combining through the activities of the various ministries to provide us with as complete a picture as we are likely to get. * The International History Review XVIII:1 *
Grant concentrates on several basic themes to which she brings both a perceptive intelligence and the outcome of thorough research.....This volume is an important addition to the literature on British propaganda in the twentieth century. * Albion *
This volume is an important addition to the literature on Britsh propaganda in the twentieth century. Grant has done for British domestic propaganda and publicity between the wars what Philip M. Taylor did for external propaganda in The Projection of Britain (1982), with the difference that her volume is illustrated. * Robert Cole, Utah State University, Albion *
Over the course of the monograph, Grant provides much detail and insight into the workings of government publicity in the interwar period ... Scholars of twentieth-century Britain will find its detail useful. * Stephen Brooks, Dalhousie University, Canadian Journal of History, XXXI December 1996 *
As a whole, the book is essentially a chapter in the hisotry of the civil service, rather than in the history of propaganda. Propaganda and the Role of the State touches on important and interesting themes and will provide a useful foundation from which to explore such issues. * Clare Griffiths, Wadham College, Oxford, Parliamentary History, 15, 2 (1996) *
well-researched monograph ... Grant's thorough and nuanced study provides a further illustration of how the governing classes in Britain resisted populist methods of mass communication. * D.L. Le Mahieu, Lake Forest College, American Historical Review, June 1996 *
Here is further testimony to the powerful but historically still rather mysterious British conception of high standrds of public conduct, and to the strong inter-war sense of constitutional democracy as an ideology needing careful nurturing and firm defence in a hostile world. * Philip Williamson, University of Durham, EHR Apr.97 *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198204442
Author Mariel Grant
Format Hardback
Page Count 296
Imprint Clarendon Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Dimensions(mm) 224mm * 144mm * 22mm