Customer Reviews

Persuasive Images: Posters of War and Revolution from the Hoover Institution Archives

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Persuasive Images is a visually stunning book. No other book comes close in terms of quality or, for that matter, quantity.

Viewed purely as an art book, it's a must-have. As a history book, it's jaw-droppingly intriguing. I have never found a book, website, or museum collection as appealing and thought-provoking as you will find in this book.

I teach high school -- I have had students stay 3 hours after school just to pore over the pages of this book. It's that good.

I was extremely pleased with this book. . .I was looking for images and I was not disappointed. From humorous to chilling it's filled with tremendously powerful works. . .many of which are as vivid and visceral now as I'm sure they were then. . .

Brilliant.

The dustjacket flap explains things rather well: "This book treats the poster both as art and as historical witness. Posters are not relegated to the secondary role of illustrating an historical text nor are they trated as autonomous aesthetic objects.... Rather, they are substantial components of an historical narrative that is made up of both image and text."

And, true to this perspective, this book honors both text and image. The images are stunning, reproduced in color with a large amount of detail and texture. In this 232 page book, there are well over 300 illustrations. Each poster is annotated and the text draws attention to similarities and differences.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Note on the Posters
Prologue: Before 1914

The First World War (pp 10-99)
The Interwar Years (pp 100-141)
The Second World War (pp 142-213)

Epilogue
Editorial Note
Bibliographical Note
List of Posters
Index of Artists