HISTORY
How To Win an Information War
Peter Pomerantsev
Allen & Unwin, 34.99
Ever since they trundled that wooden horse up to the gates of Troy – a gift bearing Greeks – deception has been one of warfare’s indispensable arts, and demoralising the enemy’s loved ones as a means of sapping the will to risk his life for them (and for his land or creed) has been one of its objectives.
Seldom in the history of warfare can anyone have been more skilled in aligning the means and ends of deception than Sefton Delmer, the subject of this new study that convincingly proves why he deserves to be called “the nearly forgotten genius of propaganda”.
Sefton Delmer making a propaganda broadcast to Germany from the BBC in November 1941.Credit:
In Peter Pomerantsev, the timely topic of how “dark artists” manipulate mass emotions has found a consummate chronicler.
Delmer’s childhood was…
