Propaganda 1776

[B]oth books have done a service to the field of early North American studies in pushing our understandings of rumor, rhetoric, and, yes, propagandistic communications forward. This fascinating field, once opened, should continue to yield new insights and prompt new methods of analysis. We owe a debt to each of these authors for his work in this area. * Ann Marie Plane, Early American Literature *
Burke was also a shrewd political operative, who reframed issues and changed positions depending on the exigencies of the moment. It is this tactical aspect of political life-the qualities that make sports analogy often seem so apt-that comes through most clearly in Castronovo's treatment of propaganda. This focus distinguishes his approach from that of Chomsky, who critiques the mainstream news media as state-sanctioned disseminators of misinformation and propaganda froma stance of philosophical certainty. In the political writings of the Revolutionary era, Castronovo sees something more fluid and multifaceted at work, with imaginative and even playful elements being central. At its best, this book celebrates the arts of politics. * Sandra M. Gustafson, Modern Philology *
Neo-whig historians attacked progressive historians who debunked patriot 'propaganda' by telling us that American revolutionaries were true believers, if ideological, and radical in ways we can embrace without much reservation. Too often this has devolved into another version of American exceptionalism. Russ Castronovo has another take on their political talents: he finds a creative resistance to power in the modes of dissemination as much as their message. The radicalism of the Revolution is back up for grabs in this fascinating corrective. * David Waldstreicher, author of Runaway America and Slavery's Constitution *
In this fresh, provocative look at the revolutionary era, Russ Castronovo challenges our knee-jerk assumptions about propaganda and enhances our understanding of early American politics.... Castronovo encourages a deeper appreciation for revolutionary propaganda as a way to make sense of American democracy and its fractures.... Castronovo's bold reconceptualization offers plenty of tools for rethinking this crucial-and misunderstood-phenomenon. * Journal of American History *
Castronovo deftly-even audaciously-shuttles his way back and forth across the last three centuries to uncover the democratic work of propaganda operative at the nation's founding and continuing to this day. Understanding propaganda as a lateral and volatile form of 'communications in motion,' Castronovo especially challenges our ideas about Revolutionary-era texts, redefining what they meant by recovering how they moved. Propaganda 1776 will be of great interest to scholars of U.S. literary, communications, media and political history. * Susan Scott Parrish, author of American Curiosity: Cultures of Natural History in the Colonial British Atlantic World *
Propaganda 1776 is an elegantly written, compellingly conceptualized book. A provocative read from page to page, it makes an original argument about the American Revolution by reviving and revivifying the concept of propaganda. * Konstantin Dierks, author of In My Power: Letter Writing and Communications in Early America *
In Propaganda 1776, Russ Castronovo sets forth a bold new paradigm of early American letters * one that describes the printscape of revolutionary era writing in vivid terms, and locates the meaning and significance of texts in their capacity to spread and propagate rather than in their truth content. This important book challenges us to reconsider pieties of the Habermasian public sphere and classical republicanism in early America and invites rich speculation on the relation of media and democracy.Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, author of New World Drama: The Performative Commons in the Atlantic World, 1649-1849 *