Why America Fights: Patriotism and War Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq

by Susan A. Brewer

On the evening of September 11, 2002, with the Statue of Liberty shimmering in the background, television cameras captured President George W. Bush as he advocated the charge for war against Iraq. This carefully staged performance, writes Susan Brewer, was the culmination of a long tradition of sophisticated wartime propaganda in America.
In Why America Fights , Brewer offers a fascinating history of how successive presidents have conducted what Donald Rumsfeld calls "perception management," from McKinley's war in the Philippines to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Her intriguing account ranges from analyses of wartime messages to descriptions of the actual operations, from the dissemination of patriotic ads and posters to the management of newspaper, radio, and TV media. When Woodrow Wilson carried the nation into World War I, he created the Committee on Public Information, led by George Creel, who called his job "the world's greatest adventure in advertising." In World War II, Roosevelt's Office of War Information avowed a "strategy of truth," though government propaganda still depicted Japanese soldiers as buck-toothed savages. After examining the ultimately failed struggle to cast the Vietnam War in a favorable light, Brewer shows how the Bush White House drew explicit lessons from that history as it engaged in an
unprecedented effort to sell a preemptive war in Iraq. Yet the thrust of its message was not much different from McKinley's pronouncements about America's civilizing mission.
Impressively researched and argued, filled with surprising details, Why America Fights shows how presidents have consistently drummed up support for foreign wars by appealing to what Americans want to believe about themselves.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, War, American History, School, Politics, United States

342 pages, Paperback

First published May 31, 2009

Reviews

[Jessica Harn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book exposes all of the US' brutal propaganda and styles of war since the beginnings of American foriegn imperialism. A must read

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a very interesting look at the use of propaganda in the USA to sell wars. The chapter on the colony in the Philippines was very interesting for me, as the only thing I had read on that war previously was by Noam Chomsky. Chomsky provides good information, but his writing style is turgid, and people will complain about the prespective he takes. This book, however, was readable and seemed to go to considerable effort to report the facts without a surfeit of opinion. Conclusions were drawn, of course - but this was a historian drawing conclusions, and not a political commentator. I was left with a feeling of having been honestly informed, and not told what to believe.

This book was informed, academic and focussed. Whilst there is plenty of information about the wars of the last century and this one, the focus of the book is the propaganda used to manufacture consent. The author shows that the extent to which this has been resented, it seems, ends up being in proportion to the extent the war is later considered, by a majority of the public, to be unjust.

[Cameron Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting look at the way American government administrations have manipulated the media and official narratives in order to get the general public on board with major war efforts throughout the twentieth century. Brewer pays close attention to the often vast difference between appearance and reality on the ground, and the influence this has on public perception. Well worth a read for anyone interested in war politics or propaganda.

[The American Conservative]

'Qualms aside, this is an important book. It sheds light on an aspect of U.S. political history that American citizens in general, and members of the press in particular, ought to examine more closely before being taken in again by bellicose state propaganda.'

Read the full review, "Selling War," on our website:
http://www.theamericanconservative.co...

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

SO REPETITIVE!

[Countchaos666 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book was excellent. I also had the pleasure of having the author as my professor for a history class on the same subject. She is super knowledgeable.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Very detailed around the events that the US has been involved in. This book helps us to understand where the US came from and how it bases decisions for the future.

[Nina Littel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly interesting and well written, though her own opinion shows through the text sometimes, especially in the last two chapters.