This open access volume presents the latest research in propaganda studies, featuring contributions from a range of leading scholars and covering the most cutting-edge scholarship in the study of propaganda from World War I to the present. Propaganda has always played a key role in shaping attitudes during periods of conflict and the academic study of propaganda, commencing in earnest in 1915, has never really left us. We continue to want to understand propaganda's inner-workings and, in doing so, to control and confine its influence. We remain anxious about pernicious information warfare campaigns, especially those that seemingly endanger liberal democracy or freedom of thought. What are the challenges, then, of studying propaganda studies in the twenty-first century? Much scholarship remains locked into the study of state-led campaigns, however an area of special concern in recent years has been the loss of official control over the basic instruments of mass communication. This has been seen in the rise of 'fake news' and the ability of non-state actors to influence political events. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollection.com. Open access was funded by Knowledge Unlatched.

This open access volume presents the latest research in propaganda studies, featuring contributions from a range of leading scholars and covering the most cutting-edge scholarship in the study of propaganda from World War I to the present. Propaganda has always played a key role in shaping attitudes during periods of conflict and the academic study of propaganda, commencing in earnest in 1915, has never really left us. We continue to want to understand propaganda's inner-workings and, in doing so, to control and confine its influence. We remain anxious about pernicious information warfare campaigns, especially those that seemingly endanger liberal democracy or freedom of thought. What are the challenges, then, of studying propaganda studies in the twenty-first century? Much scholarship remains locked into the study of state-led campaigns, however an area of special concern in recent years has been the loss of official control over the basic instruments of mass communication. This has been seen in the rise of 'fake news' and the ability of non-state actors to influence political events. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollection.com. Open access was funded by Knowledge Unlatched.

Born in 1904, Brandt played a major role in the first mass killing programme of the Third Reich, the so called 'euthanasia' programme. As Reich Commissioner for Health and Sanitation, Karl Brandt became the highest medical authority in the Nazi regime; he initiated experiments on concentration camps inmates and was eventually put in charge of biological and chemical warfare. How was it that a rational, highly cultured, literate, young professional could come to be responsible for mass murder and criminal human experiments on a previously unimaginable scale? In this riveting biography, Ulf Schmidt explores in detail that Brandt belonged to a generation of a young 'expert elite', who in the 1930s and 1940s were willing, and empowered, to support and conceive an oppressive, militarist, and racist government policy, and ultimately turn its exterminatory potential into reality. Through a critical biography of Brandt, Schmidt re-evaluates the system of communication at the centre of Hitler's regime. The book extends our understanding of the culture of detachment between a regime that was geared towards total destruction, and a government that was almost totally removed from its people.