Customer Reviews

War and Press Freedom: The Problem of Prerogative Power

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Although published before the current war on terrorism, this book's historical overview of the relationship between media and the American government during times of war is strikingly relevant to today's headlines. Military tribunals for civilians? Abe Lincoln tried that in the Civil War. Another intriguing element is the discussion of how suppression of the atomic bomb's development -- by both the government and the media -- led to not only an ill-informed public, but an ill-informed president and may have impacted the final actions of World War II.
Filled with solid scholarly research, this book is still accessible to the lay reader and offers fascinating insight into our country's history. From the Revolutionary War to the Gulf War, it covers who, among journalists and politicians, took what actions in time of war; why they thought they were justified; and what impact these actions had on political, legal and military developments.

I first read this book when it was entered into a media history book competition for which I was a judge, before Sept. 11 and Afghanistan and Iraq. I was extremely impressed then. More recently, I have assigned my media history students (undergraduate and graduate students) to read it, and this fall, I am requiring graduate students in media law to read it. I'm not using this book so much because I'm too lazy to find or read another one; it's really that good. Nearly every sentence forces one to think about democracy, law, journalism, the nature of government, the role of the military, and the information needs of average citizens. It's not only for professors and journalism, history or law students. One of the best books I've ever read--no kidding.

While the content may be educational, I found this book to be extremely "foggy." The author jumps around from subject to subject and there are too many quotations from other sources. Rather than explaining things in his own words, it's more like a string of quotations separated by prose that makes little sense. Any student of writing would receive a failing grade for turning in something similar to this.