In 1955, the United States Information Agency published a lavishly illustrated booklet called My America. Assembled ostensibly to document "the basic elements of a free dynamic society," the booklet emphasized cultural diversity, political freedom, and social mobility and made no mention of McCarthyism or the Cold War. Though hyperbolic, My America was, as Laura A. Belmonte shows, merely one of hundreds of pamphlets from this era written and distributed in an organized attempt to forge a collective defense of the "American way of life." Selling the American Way examines the context, content, and reception of U.S. propaganda during the early Cold War. Determined to protect democratic capitalism and undercut communism, U.S. information experts defined the national interest not only in geopolitical, economic, and military terms. Through radio shows, films, and publications, they also propagated a carefully constructed cultural narrative of freedom, progress, and abundance as a means of protecting national security. Not simply a one-way look at propaganda as it is produced, the book is a subtle investigation of how U.S. propaganda was received abroad and at home and how criticism of it by Congress and successive presidential administrations contributed to its modification.

The riveting, untold story of George Creel and the Committee on Public Information -- the first and only propaganda initiative sanctioned by the U.S. government. When the people of the United States were reluctant to enter World War I, maverick journalist George Creel created a committee at President Woodrow Wilson's request to sway the tide of public opinion. The Committee on Public Information monopolized every medium and avenue of communication with the goal of creating a nation of enthusiastic warriors for democracy. Forging a path that would later be studied and retread by such characters as Adolf Hitler, the Committee revolutionized the techniques of governmental persuasion, changing the course of history. Selling the War is the story of George Creel and the epoch-making agency he built and led. It will tell how he came to build the and how he ran it, using the emerging industries of mass advertising and public relations to convince isolationist Americans to go to war. It was a force whose effects were felt throughout the twentieth century and continue to be felt, perhaps even more strongly, today. In this compelling and original account, Alan Axelrod offers a fascinating portrait of America on the cusp of becoming a world power and how its first and most extensive propaganda machine attained unprecedented results.

WITH WIT AND PIERCING INSIGHT, JOY-ANN REID CALCULATES THE TRUE PRICE OF THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY Is Donald Trump running the “longest con” in U.S. history? What will be left of America when he leaves office? Candidate Trump sold Americans a vision that was seemingly at odds with their country’s founding principles. Now in office, he’s put up a for sale sign—on the prestige of the presidency, on America’s global stature, and on our national identity. At what cost have these deals come? Joy-Ann Reid’s The Man Who Sold America delivers an urgent accounting of our national crisis from one of our foremost political commentators. Three years ago, Donald Trump pitched millions of voters on the idea that their country was broken, and that the rest of the world was playing us “for suckers.” All we needed to fix this was Donald Trump, who rebranded prejudice as patriotism, presented diversity as our weakness, and promised that money really could make the world go ’round. Trump made the sale to just enough Americans in three key swing states to win the Electoral College. As president, Trump’s raft of self-dealing, scandal, and corruption has overwhelmed the national conversation. And with prosecutors bearing down on Trump and his family business, the web of criminality is circling closer to the Oval Office. All this while Trump seemingly makes his administration a pawn for the ultimate villain: an autocratic former KGB officer in Russia who found in the untutored and eager forty-fifth president the perfect “apprentice.” How did we get here? What is the hidden impact of Trump, beyond the headlines? Joy-Ann Reid’s essential book examines why he succeeded, and whether America can undo the damage he has done. Through interviews with American and international thought leaders and in-depth analysis, Reid situates the Trump era within the context of modern history, examining the profound social changes that led us to this point. A deeply pertinent analysis, The Man Who Sold America reveals the causes and consequences of the Trump presidency and contends with the future that awaits us.

Selling Intervention and War examines the competition among foreign policy elites in the executive branch and Congress in winning the hearts and minds of the American public for military intervention. The book studies how the president and his supporters organize campaigns for public support for military action. According to Jon Western, the outcome depends upon information and propaganda advantages, media support or opposition, the degree of cohesion within the executive branch, and the duration of the crisis. Also important is whether the American public believes that military threat is credible and victory plausible. Not all such campaigns to win public support are successful; in some instances, foreign policy elites and the president and his advisors have to back off. Western uses several modern conflicts, including the current one in Iraq, as case studies to illustrate the methods involved in selling intervention and war to the American public: the decision not to intervene in French Indochina in 1954, the choice to go into Lebanon in 1958, and the more recent military actions in Grenada, Somalia, Bosnia, and Iraq. Selling Intervention and War is essential reading for scholars and students of U.S. foreign policy, international security, the military and foreign policy, and international conflict.

"Asks whether it is ever possible for a president to nudge the nation toward war without lying. And if he does, is it sometimes all right? Most of these authors would vote no."--Columbia Journalism Review "It was a pleasant and poignant surprise to find an afterword written by the late David Halberstam, one of the best reporter-historians of the last century. It may be his last major piece of writing. . . . It is an appropriate way to wind up the collection, because his words are a sobering reminder that the press is important yet not all-powerful in a democracy. Presidents long ago mastered the tools at their disposal to achieve policy ends."--American Journalism "American history at its best--insightful and revealing about the past, yet at the same time illuminating the vital questions of our own day."--Jeffrey A. Engel, Texas A&M University George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" banner in 2003 and the misleading linkages of Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 terrorist attacks awoke many Americans to the techniques used by the White House to put the country on a war footing. Yet Bush was simply following in the footsteps of his predecessors, as the essays in this standout volume reveal in illuminating detail. Written in a lively and accessible style, Selling War in a Media Age is a fascinating, thought-provoking, must-read volume that reveals the often-brutal ways that the goal of influencing public opinion has shaped how American presidents have approached the most momentous duty of their office: waging war. Kenneth Osgood, associate professor of history at Florida Atlantic University, is the author of Total Cold War: Eisenhower's Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad, winner of the Herbert Hoover Book Award. Andrew K. Frank, associate professor of history at Florida State University, is the author of Creeks and Southerners: Biculturalism on the Early American Frontier. A volume in the Alan B. Larkin Series on the American Presidency, edited by Kenneth Osgood

Only in recent decades has the American academic profession taken women’s history seriously. But the very concept of women’s history has a much longer past, one that’s intimately entwined with the development of American advertising and consumer culture. Selling Women’s History reveals how, from the 1900s to the 1970s, popular culture helped teach Americans about the accomplishments of their foremothers, promoting an awareness of women’s wide-ranging capabilities. On one hand, Emily Westkaemper examines how this was a marketing ploy, as Madison Avenue co-opted women’s history to sell everything from Betsy Ross Red lipstick to Virginia Slims cigarettes. But she also shows how pioneering adwomen and female historians used consumer culture to publicize histories that were ignored elsewhere. Their feminist work challenged sexist assumptions about women’s subordinate roles. Assessing a dazzling array of media, including soap operas, advertisements, films, magazines, calendars, and greeting cards, Selling Women’s History offers a new perspective on how early- and mid-twentieth-century women saw themselves. Rather than presuming a drought of female agency between the first and second waves of American feminism, it reveals the subtle messages about women’s empowerment that flooded the marketplace.

Since the end of the 19th century, the relative skillfulness of the U.S. government's propaganda efforts have largely determined the American public's willingness to support the wars the United States has waged. The job of informing and persuading America to support its war efforts has become increasingly more challenging as media technologies, like the Internet and the instant global coverage of television news, reach into every American home. Selling War to America begins its examination with the U.S. government's campaign to instigate a war with Spain and ends with a review of the methods the government is using now to encourage support for the War Against Terrorism.

Between the 1920s and the 1970s, American economic culture began to emphasize the value of consumption over production. At the same time, the rise of new mass media such as radio and television facilitated the advertising and sales of consumer goods on an unprecedented scale. In Style and Status: Selling Beauty to African American Women, 1920--1975, Susannah Walker analyzes an often-overlooked facet of twentieth-century consumer society as she explores the political, social, and racial implications of the business devoted to producing and marketing beauty products for African American women. Walker examines African American beauty culture as a significant component of twentieth-century consumerism, and she links both subjects to the complex racial politics of the era. The efforts of black entrepreneurs to participate in the American economy and to achieve self-determination of black beauty standards often caused conflict within the African American community. Additionally, a prevalence of white-owned firms in the African American beauty industry sparked widespread resentment, even among advocates of full integration in other areas of the American economy and culture. Concerned African Americans argued that whites had too much influence over black beauty culture and were invading the market, complicating matters of physical appearance with questions of race and power. Based on a wide variety of documentary and archival evidence, Walker concludes that African American beauty standards were shaped within black society as much as they were formed in reaction to, let alone imposed by, the majority culture. Style and Status challenges the notion that the civil rights and black power movements of the 1950s through the 1970s represents the first period in which African Americans wielded considerable influence over standards of appearance and beauty. Walker explores how beauty culture affected black women's racial and feminine identities, the role of black-owned businesses in African American communities, differences between black-owned and white-owned manufacturers of beauty products, and the concept of racial progress in the post--World War II era. Through the story of the development of black beauty culture, Walker examines the interplay of race, class, and gender in twentieth-century America.

In a sweeping colourful history that spans over two centuries of American culture, Moore examines the role of religion in America as it appropriated (and was appropriated by) commercial culture. He reveals the centrality of religion, and the marketplace, in American popular culture.