Event Coverage Highlight
Book Night – Manipulating the Masses: Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of American Propaganda
Please join us for a Book Night with author and OPC member John Maxwell Hamilton about his new book: Manipulating the Masses: Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of American Propaganda. OPC Past President Allan Dodds Frank will moderate the discussion.
RSVPs are essential. Register now to receive login credentials about an hour before the program.
Hamilton has produced a compelling investigation that documents how the American government under President Woodrow Wilson a century ago laid out the foundations for the government to build a propaganda machine designed to mislead the public. Using World War I as the rationale for establishing the “Committee on Public Information” under muckraker George Creel, the Wilson Administration wrote a propaganda playbook that foreshadowed what future administrations would do to manipulate public opinion. In Hamilton’s view, these perversions of the truth represent a persistent threat to democracy. His story also has startling revelations about the extent to which the press allowed itself to be bend to Wilson’s war aims.
A longtime journalist, public servant in government, educator and historian, Hamilton’s special talent is his ability to analyze media behavior and what influences its institutions.
Hamilton is the founding Dean of the Manship School of Journalism at Louisiana State University, also is the author of one of the most authoritative books about foreign correspondents, called Journalism’s Roving Eye, A History of American Newsgathering Abroad.
He has reported from more than 50 countries and serves as treasurer of the International Center for Journalists in Washington, D.C. In addition to holding an endowed chair in journalism at LSU, Hamilton currently is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars and a Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
