A rare opportunity to understand the dynamics of printed propaganda.
I went to Northwestern University as a graduate student in 1971 expecting to do research on John Calvin's rhetoric, an interest I'd developed as an undergraduate at the Calvin College, where I now teach. I quickly discovered that to do research on Calvin, I needed to know French and Latin. I knew German. Professor Robert D. Brooks, however, was looking for graduate students interested in propaganda, and I was the only one who knew enough German to be dangerous. He persuaded me to take up the subject, which has kept me occupied ever since.
With a few exceptions, my publications are on Nazi and East German political propaganda. A full list is available here:
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/faculty/randallbytwerk.htm
Besides my books on the area, I maintain the German Propaganda Archive, a large and growing collection of translations and images from the Nazi and East German periods. It's worth a visit:
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/
I'm currently working on how the Nazis used American rhetoric during World War II in their propaganda.
