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From the Publisher, Public Affairs Books:

A passionate, thought-provoking, sometimes incendiary look at the role of propaganda in American today-- by leading political pundits, intellectuals, and writers

Propaganda. Manipulation. Spin. Control. It has ever been thus�or has it? On the eve of the 60th anniversary of George Orwell's classic essay on propaganda (Politics and the English Language), writers have been invited to explore what Orwell didn't�or couldn't�know. Their responses, framed in pithy, focused essays, range far and wide: from the effect of television and computing, to the vast expansion of knowledge about how our brains respond to symbolic messages, to the merger of journalism and entertainment, to lessons learned during and after a half-century of totalitarianism. Together, they paint a portrait of a political culture in which propaganda and mind control are alive and well (albeit in forms and places that would have surprised Orwell). The pieces in this anthology sound alarm bells about the manipulation and misinformation in today's politics, and offer guideposts for a journalism attuned to Orwellian tendencies in the 21st century.

By an online reviewer:

A book of galvanic essays written by noted journalists, authors, reporters, professors, and psychologists - What Orwell Didn't Know is truly a "must read" - especially before voting in the 2008 election. Prompted by the dismal state of "political discourse," today, five revered schools of journalism joined forces to create this anthology. Its 20 essays provide a vital resource to help readers and reporters alike to "disenthrall public debate from bias, hyperbole, bombast and lies."

Along the way, it enlightens readers about everything from brain research and the psychology of emotion to the devastating impact of the "Orwellian" Postal Reogranization Act of 1970 on small, independent opinion journals and magazines; the tragic and ironic consequences of the administration's "subservience of truth to power" in Iraq and in the US; the "carnivalesque media economy," the threat of corporate power, and our own willingness to look the other way when the Emporer has no clothes.

While I found a few of the 20 essays in the book somewhat less engaging, most were powerful, alarming, challenging and enlightening. And though Americans are more savvy today about the ways in which language can be manipulated and distorted for political ends, we can still be taken in....and we do ourselves, and our democaracy, a dangerous disservice if we do not question rigorously the medium, the message, the messenger the motives behind all we hear and read. "What Orwell Didn't Know" offers chilling evidence of our need for vigilance and action...I can't recommend it highly enough.

From the Barnes and Noble Review:

What Orwell Didn't Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics is undoubtedly one of the most important books of the last few years, which is saying a lot, for the peculiar crises of our times have inspired a number of important political screeds. This anthology of essays was conceived when the deans of five American schools of journalism decided that it was time to address the state of public discourse in our country, especially the language used by politicians and journalists, which seems, in the words of the volume's editor, Andr�s Sz�nt�, "to be divorcing itself from reality at an alarming rate." The journalism deans "were especially concerned about the waning power -- or inclination -- of the press to bring political rhetoric in line with fact" [ix], believing that the line between debate and propaganda had become dangerously obscured.

The deans' discussion happened to coincide with the approaching 60th anniversary of George Orwell's seminal essay "Politics and the English Language," which made a connection between the corruption of political life and the debasement of language, famously characterizing political language as an idiom "designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." Though Orwell's jeremiad had been written in response to the international situation of 1946 and with particular reference to the use of propaganda in totalitarian states like the Soviet Union, his concerns are only too clearly applicable to 21st-century America. What would, and what would not have surprised him about our current propaganda and political language? What didn't Orwell know? This was the question put by the journalism deans (Orville Schell, Geoffrey Cowan, Nicholas Lemann, Joshua S. Fouts, and Ernest J. Wilson), editor Andr�s Sz�nt�, and George Soros, whose Open Society Institute underwrote this volume.

It is easy to see how propaganda can flourish unchecked in a totalitarian state like Nazi Germany or Maoist China. What Soros and his colleagues are concerned to point out is the surprising fact that it appears to do just as well in an open, pluralistic society like our own. "What Orwell knew well," Sz�nt� points out, "was the threat of Totalitarianism: the horror of Fascism and the creeping shadow of Communism. What he didn't know -- what he couldn't really know -- was how modern consumer society would mold propaganda to its own form. Contemporary methods of persuasion are subtle, insidious, sugarcoated, focus-grouped, and market-tested -- and comparable in their effectiveness to anything served up by despots and demagogues of the past�. If Big Brother had had these tools, he'd still be around."

From book columnist Kathy Hickman:

While Americans are more savvy today about the ways in which language can be manipulated and distorted for political ends, we do ourselves and democracy a dangerous disservice if we do not question rigorously the medium, the message, the messenger and the motives behind all we hear and read. "What Orwell Didn't Know" offers chilling and challenging evidence of our need for vigilance, alarm and action. One way or another, we will "create our own reality."


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