THE STRATEGY OF TERROR Europe s Inner Front by K D M O N 1 TAYLOR
HOUGHTON MIFFTJN COMPANY - BOSTON tftoc 1940 CONTENTS I War Never
Ends i II The Word Becomes War 6 III Back to Munich 26 IV The
Spring of War 53 V The Fateful Month of August 68 VI Ideals as
Weapons 106 VII Hamlets in Uniform 146 VIII War in Our Time 166 IX
Killing with Kindness 187 X Anastasie the Fair 211 XI The War of
Reason 221 By Way of Postscript 266 The Pace Quickens 269 I ndex
271 I WAR NEVER ENDS THERE is one of Europes battle fronts no war
correspondent has yet adequately covered the battle-front of the
mind, where ideas and ideologies, propaganda and emotions, clash in
ordered ranks, disciplined like soldiers. On this front there is no
truce here war never ends. It was raging before the first gun spoke
it will still be raging when the diplomats of Europe gather under
the chandeliers or by some lakeside to dictate or negotiate a
peace. Peace offensives are just offensives on the battle-front of
the mind and war scares are just war. My book is an attempt to
cover this little-known battle-front. It is the kind of
unpretentious, hurried history which foreign correspondents today
write as they run, that is, history not only seen but felt and
lived by the historian, I am keenly interested by the strategy and
tactics of psychological warfare, but I am more interested by the
human drama underlying it, and this dramatic element is precisely
what most writers on the subject have overlooked We hear a lot
about the war of propaganda, the war of nerves, STRATEGY OF TERROR
and other names for the war in the mind, but we arc apt to think of
these expressions as metaphorical, whereas they are literally
descriptive of a form ofconflict which is becoming more and more
important in modern life. In reality, the war in the mind, the war
of nerves, or whatever you choose to call it, is, like any war, an
organised conflict of group-wills. It 1ms its own battle fields,
and these produce not only their victories and defeats, but their
own thrills and their peculiar horrors. A trick of the tongue makes
it hard for us to realise this. We say war of propaganda 7 and at
the back of our minds there is a sort of Walt Disney image of
little uniformed lies charging the enemy in syntactical phalanxes.
Obviously, only a poet like Disney or a nee-Platonic mystic can see
a human drama in such a conflict, because lies are not men but
merely the wonts of men when a lie kills a He there is no blood I
am writing this book because 1 see a different image I am not
interested in the massacre of ideas as such, but in the impact on
human beings of ideas used as weapons. Tactically, the drama of
Europe lies in the clash of ideals and the tug of contradictory
loyalties, pitted the ones against the others by conscious propa
gandists to whom the mind of Europe Is only a battlefield,
sentiments and ideals so many weapons to be used against the enemy.
From a human point of view, the drama of Europe is the havoc
wrought by this psychological war on the battlefield of the mind,
and of this war I am well fitted to bear wi trims in more than ten
years of living in Europe I have not only covered it but lived with
it and collected scars from it, When I hear expressions like war of
nerves war of propa ganda 1 think of my scars and of the scars
which my friends carry. I remember those inhuman diplomatic crises,
more un WAR NEVER ENDS nerving than war, that we lived through,
particularly the one before Munich. I remember all those stupid,
bitter political quarrels, felt like a personal grievance, between
friends and within families quarrels about Spain, quarrels about
Munich. I remember all the false hopes, all the bitter
disillusionments...
General
Imprint: |
Read Books
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Release date: |
March 2007 |
First published: |
March 2007 |
Authors: |
Edmond Taylor
|
Dimensions: |
216 x 140 x 16mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
Pages: |
284 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-4067-7207-4 |
Categories: |
Books >
Humanities >
History >
General
Books >
History >
General
Promotions
|
LSN: |
1-4067-7207-0 |
Barcode: |
9781406772074 |
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