Battles are won in combat. Wars are won by winning the hearts and minds of the people. For more than one hundred years, American governments have tried to "sell" wars to America. Lies were told and truths withheld because government and military leaders did not trust the American people to make appropriate decisions concerning our national security. The attacks of September 11, 2001, on The World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon have summoned the American people to "a war on terrorism." The U.S. government is now trying to mobilize American public opinion to support this war. But this is just the most recent example of how our government has sought to enlist broad public support for the wars it has waged. Since the end of the 19th century, the relative skillfulness of the U.S. government's propaganda efforts have largely determined the American public's willingness to support the wars the United States has waged. The job of informing and persuading America to support its war efforts has become increasingly more challenging as media technologies, like instant global coverage of television news and the Internet, reach into every American home. Selling War to America begins its examination with the U.S. Government's campaign to instigate a war with Spain and ends with a review of the methods the government is using now to encourage support for the War Against Terrorism. The book analyzes each of these wars within the context of the techniques that the government used to generate public support, also examining the results of propaganda efforts, both before and after each conflict. From these historical analyses, noting both the blunders and the triumphs of the past century, Selling Warto America pinpoints the pitfalls and offers the keys to successfully persuading the American public to support wars that must be fought. that must be fought.

An Introduction to the History of Communication: Evolutions and Revolutions provides a comprehensive overview of how human communication has changed and is changing. Focusing on the evolutions and revolutions of six key changes in the history of communication - becoming human; creating writing; developing print; capturing the image; harnessing electricity; and exploring cybernetics - the author reveals how communication was generated, stored, and shared. This ecological approach provides a comprehensive understanding of the key variables that underlie each of these great evolutions-revolutions in human communication. Designed as an introduction for history of communication classes, the text examines the past, attempting to identify the key dynamics of change in these human, technical, semiotic, social, political, economic, and cultural structures, in order to better understand the present and prepare for possible future developments.