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.
*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.
*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.
*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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