Propaganda, Inc.: Selling America's Culture to the World

by Nancy Snow

Book Overview

In this revised and expanded second edition, Nancy Snow, who spent two years inside America's propaganda machine - the US Information Agency - gives the first ex-insider's account of the operation, explaining how the US government attempts to influence foreign opinion by exporting US culture and pro-US propaganda throughout the world. Snow follows the evolution of US propaganda through the demise of the USIA in 1999, up to the new, post-September...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1583225390
• ISBN13: 9781583225394
• Release Date: October 2002
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press
• Length: 104 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 4.3" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Great Work

I had never heard of the United States Information Agency until I read this book. Among other public diplomacy (read: propaganda) duties, the USIA is responsible for Radio Marti, the pro-US propaganda beamed in to Cuba and the Fullbright scholar program. The reason those of us living in the US don't know too much about the USIA's mission is that they are not allowed to use their propaganda skills on US citizens, even though their predecessor organization, the Committee on Public Information (CPI) was created during the Wilson administration specifically to convince the people of the US that fighting the Germans in World War I was critical to the security of the American homeland. Post cold-war and especially during the Clinton administration, the USIA became the mouthpiece of NAFTA and the evangelization of people in other countries of the benefits of accepting American-style economies. This very brief book outlines much of this history and the author Nancy Snow makes it clear that any positive aspects of the program like the Fullbright program have been long buried under the pro-business propaganda machine of the Clinton and Bush the Younger administrations. The Fullbright program in particular became a tool to influence thought on market economics in Mexico and Canada, whose citizens were ambivalent about the promises of economic development promised by NAFTA. Today, much of the USIA's work has been rolled into the State Department, headed by former advertising executive Charlotte Beers, who is charged with "rebranding America to the world" like the Uncle Ben's Rice she used to work on. The USIA is one of the vehicles of US economic and cultural hegemony, especially in countries that we can't go to war with. Snow's history and analysis ends with an action plan that is wider reaching than simply what to do with the USIA. It is really a series of concrete ideas for reforming the very government of our country.

One dollar, one vote.

This small book tells the story of the USIA (the US Information Agency), a government unit. This institution was created with very good intentions (increase mutual understanding between people), but was diverted from its original goal and streamlined as a propaganda machine to promote the US economic system and business interests. The author rightly stigmatizes harshly the democratic deficit in the US: a media monopoly, a political duopoly ruled by big business and big money, and a plutocracy which dominates without control public welfare, public lands, public airwaves and the pension trusts. Prof. Snow proposes a seven point plan to restore true democracy, but the implementation will be extremely difficult, if not impossible. This book should be read as a classic example of how particular interest groups take control of a public institution and turn it into a pro-private interests mouthpiece. Not to be missed.

finally!

Someone please put this woman on TV!

Excellent.

This book is the most intelligent written in ages. It tells the truth about how men and women are being brainwashed in our country...right along with people in foreign countries. Nancy Snow covers this brilliantly. You'll never see America the same way...

Eye-opening overview of American cultural policy!

Snow presents a critique of U.S. foreign policy in a clear, accessible style. I was not at all familiar with 20th century U.S.-style propaganda (my background is in finance and marketing) but this little book got me thinking about how important it is for citizens to keep themselves informed about what the government does to promote our culture overseas. Snow doesn't just critique but offers some alternatives to the status quo.