Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes [Paperback]

Jacques Ellul (Author), Konrad Kellen (Translator), Jean Lerner (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (January 12, 1973)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394718747
• ISBN-13: 978-0394718743
• Product Dimensions: 4.3 x 0.7 x 7.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,737 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

141 of 146 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Chilling Study, January 6, 2000

By 

daibhidh "daibhidh" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (Paperback)

Published in 1965, this book is a significant, if creepy study of that oft-misunderstood concept of propaganda. The references are unfortunately dated, but the insights are valuable, especially given how much propaganda is ignored in American society, particularly. It's not an easy read by any means, mostly because he throws so much at you at once you're sort of left punch-drunk. He lays it all out forthrightly.

The most terrible revelation he offers is when he points out that the most informed individuals (in the sense of consuming the most media) are the most propagandized (but unaware of being so). This is why this book doesn't get more play -- it would put the Massive Media and the "public relations" (aka, propaganda industry) out of business if people understood their real social role.

The book is bleak, and leaves you reeling. But it does provide intellectual ammunition -- namely, critical thinking -- as a hopeful vaccination from propaganda, except for Ellul's statement that people who think propaganda doesn't affect them tend to be propagandized....

I guess the safest thing you can do is assume you are a victim of propaganda, and then deal with it by sorting out what opinions are genuinely yours, and what are the result of "conventional wisdom" and "common sense". The alternative is to pretend you're somehow immune.

85 of 88 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Important Book, April 19, 2003

By 

R. Burnier (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (Paperback)

Ellul takes a look at propaganda in its fullest and widest sense. Instead of trying to tinker with interesting but narrow experiments in mind manipulation, Ellul takes a view of propaganda from where it actually exists and springs forth in society and in history. He has a holistic theory of the workings and effects of the phenomenon.

And this is as it should be. After all, the propagandist is operating in full force right now, as he was in the 1960's when the book was written, and he is not using controlled labs to do it. He is doing it on a mass scale in real society and achieving results. Therefore a serious attempt to understand propaganda "in its actual place" and "as it is used" is valuable and enlightening. Ellul is not interested in "building" a technique for propaganda from the ground up, or in "proving" that it is possible. This much has already been done as evidenced by plain facts!! He is acknowledging what has already been achieved and is looking at these systems from many angles to determine their nature and tease out an understanding so we can know more what we are facing.

You will find many less than intuitive but fascinating notions in the book.

For instance: Education increases the ingestion of propaganda. In fact it is a prerequisite. It is no wonder Saddam Hussein worked to increase literacy in Iraq -- all the better to try to propagandize the people with words and mold them into a cohesive whole. Another idea: Democracies like the U.S. are very vulnerable to propaganda. In fact, this form of government makes propaganda all the more necessary, since you must work on people's minds more than their bodies (it is not a dictatorship.) People in democracies should expect to be heavily and relentlessly propagandized.

These are just a few samples of the many fascinating (and horrifying) ideas and insights in this volume.

One thing to note: Jacques Ellul is also a theologian and Christian, and he doesn't make much of a secret of that in his book or his other writings. I am not a Christian myself (I'm an atheist), but I frankly think Ellul's Christianity not only DOESN'T cloud Ellul's sharp powers of logic and observation, but it does him a bit of service in his examination of propaganda and its harmful effects on the human being. He makes few bones about the idea that propaganda has a tendency to separate man from himself and his true spirituality and/or personality. This he relates among the other harmful effects on the world at large in the form of exploitation and war.

All I can say is read this book: You'll never look at things the same way afterwards.

79 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Orwell's 1984 = fiction; Ellul's Propaganda = prophecy, September 16, 2003

By 

wildbill (Tacoma, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (Paperback)

Jacques Ellul is meticulous and thoughtful, so this book is occasionally dense and hard to follow. In addition, most of the examples and allusions will strike modern Americans as dated and obscure. Nonetheless, Ellul saw long ago where moderns were headed. He saw that authoritarian use of modern technologies would mesmerize, stultify, and reduce humans to thralls, just as Orwell and Huxley, in far more hysterical prose, had dramatized.

Orwell's electronic miracles monitored citizens directly or indirectly. Huxley's miracles were far more therapeutic or medical. But routine surveillance or treatment is inefficient and overwhelms any state that would depend on omniscience or envelopment. Ellul foresaw tools both electronic and human that would so condition subject-audiences that close monitoring and careful prescriptions would be unneeded.

Ellul also argued that this "Brave, New World" could not but subvert democracy and decency. Once the will of the citizen is not his or her own, then democracy in any meaningful sense is at least devalued and perhaps transformed into reassuring internment.

Perhaps Ellul's most important insight was that the educated believed themselves immune to propaganda when, due to their proclivity for reading and watching news and other governmental outflow, such "intellectuals" were actually far more vulnerable than masses who did not receive propaganda as often.

So turn off the set and log off the internet and settle in with a truly life-changing read.