1 Propaganda, Politics and Film 1918-1945 editors: Nicholas Pronay & D.K. Spring Published by MacMillan 1982 302pp. Price: Approx R47.95 ISBN 0 333 30939 1 The nature of politics, both internal and external, has been trans- formed in the twentieth century by the arrival of modern means of communications. In this volume British, American, Dutch and Rus- sian authors examine aspects of their role and political impact between 1918 and 1945. In Part I, "The Projection of Britain", Phillip Taylor traces how the British Foreign Office and Cabinet recognised, with reluctance and distaste but nevertheless to a full extent that, in peacetime as well as war, the conduct of 'propaganda' would have to become a part of the work of governments. Davis Ellwood analyses the development and impact of the British Council -- the first in- stitutional result of the acceptance of the need for 'cultural diplomacy'. In Part II, "Film Propaganda in Britain and France between the World Wars", Peter Stead surveys the new mass working-class aud- ience created by the cinema, how the cinema affected their ex- pectations and why Hollywood, rather than the British cinema, suc- ceeded in projecting them. Nicholas Pronay discusses how the new medium for the masses and for the new mass electorate, came to be placed under comprehensive political control through the British Board of Film Censors. John Ramsden shows how Baldwin and the Conservative Party appreciated the potential of the new media and how before the other parties, they harnessed it for the needs of the new electoral conditions. Bert Hogenkamp examines the impact of film on the labour movement and the radical left. By comparison, Elizabeth Strebel surveys the role of film both for the left and right in France in the crucial years of the Pop- ular Front. In Part III, "Film Propaganda in Britain in the Second World War", Pronay discusses the mobilization of the fully developed modern news media in Britain for total war, with newsreels in the front- line. Ian Dalrymple describes the work of the Crown Film Unit of which he was head during the war. Helen Forman describes from her own experience the scheme of the great wartime experi- ment of the non-theatrical use of film and the late Tom Harrison, the founder of Mass-Observation, drew on the files and his own experience of that pioneer organization of opinion research to survey the complex issue of the effectiveness of wartime propa- ganda films in Britain. In Part IV, "The Projection of the Soviet Union", S.V. Drobashenko discusses how the potential of film as a mobilising influence on the masses was developed in the Soviet Union and how Soviet films of the 1920s and 1930s reflect the various phases of Soviet de- velopment. D.W. Spring draws on a unique collection of Soviet newsreels, sent abroad in the Second World Kar, to analyse the role and character of the Soviet newsreel in mobilising the Soviet Soviet population for total war and of the image of the Soviet Union at war, which it was hoped would be created through them abroad. Nicholas Pronay is Senior Lecturer in Modern History at the Uni- versity of Leeds, Chairman of the Inter-Varsity History Film Con- sortium, and a director of the Historical Association for Tele- vision and film. D.W. Spring is Senior Lecturer in Russian and East European His- tory at Leeds. Taken from the flyleaf QUARTERLY Literature/Film Quarterly NOW CELEBRATING OUR TENTH YEAR INTERVIEWS ESSAYS REVIEWS Please send me a sample copy. I enclose S1.BO Please enter my subscription, to begin with the current issue. Individual - $8; Institutional - S16 Send to: Editors Literature/Film Quatteriy Salisbury State College Salisbury. MD 21801