propaganda
Consorting with the enemy: The Propagandist, by Cécile Desprairies, reviewed
The debut novel by a historian of the Vichy regime is a personal J’Accuse, indicting the collaborators in her family for their part in France’s collapse in the second world war
Men under fire
On its posthumous publication in 1980, Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate was widely compared with War and Peace. For all…
Alfred the Great
Andrew Lycett on the pugnacious British press baron dedicated to fighting the first world war through newsprint
Wolves in sheep’s clothing
To study international politics since the turn of the century has been, in large part, to study the changing nature…
Conflict of opinion
Why Russian support for the war will keep growing
Screen off
What Russians watch — and believe
History endlessly repeated
Perhaps the secret to understanding Russian history lies in its grammar: it lacks a pluperfect tense. In Latin, English and…
The Spectator’s Notes
Last month, writing elsewhere, I quoted the website of the China Centre at Jesus College, Cambridge: ‘Under the leadership of…
The beauty of Soviet anti-religious propaganda
Deep in the guts of Russian library stacks exists what remains — little acknowledged or discussed — of a dead…
The art of persuasion
It’s hard to admire communist art with an entirely clear conscience. The centenary of the October revolution, which falls this…
The devil’s devoted disciple
It is ironic that this weighty biography of Hitler’s evil genius of a propaganda minister is published on the day…
Independence will lead to artistic ‘desecration’
Daniel Jackson foresees an impoverished cultural landscape for an independentScotland, with artists forced to do Salmond’s bidding
Empire of deceit
Putin’s answer to the destruction of Flight MH17 has been more propaganda. In Russia, at least, it seems to be working
The NHS ‘wellbeing’ monkey deserves to die
My young daughter has a furry beaver — lifelike in all but its eyes, which to me seem cold and dead.…
Directing the war effort
John Ford was the first of the five famous Hollywood film directors to go to war. He went expecting to…
Putin’s pink peril
Russia’s thuggish President has picked on the wrong minority