Know Your Enemy: Images of the Enemy in Propaganda in the Twentieth Century - David Welch

David Welch will discuss how one of the most striking means by which different propaganda media have influenced social and political attitudes, changing or reinforcing them has been through the use of stereotypes - conventional figures that have come to be regarded as representative of particular classes, races, nations, etc. Drawing largely from the experience of war or conflict, the talk will use propaganda artefacts such as pamphlets, postcards, cartoons, film and TV.

David Welch is Professor of Modern History & Director of the Centre for the Study of War, Propaganda & Society at the University of Kent. His publications include The Third Reich: Politics, and Propaganda (Routledge, 2002), Hitler: Profile of a Dictator (Routledge, 2001), Propaganda and the German Cinema, 1933-1945 (OUP, 1983 revised edition I.B.Tauris, 2001), Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia from 1500 to the Present [with D. Culbert and N. Cull] (ABC Clio, 2003), Justifying War: Propaganda, Politics and the Modern Age [with Jo Fox] (Palgrave, 2012) and he edited contributed two chapters to a festschrift for Philip Taylor, Propaganda. From World War 1 to WikiLeaks (I.B.Tauris, 2013). In 2013, he co-curated the successful British Library exhibition, ‘Propaganda: Power and Persuasion’ and authored the accompanying book of the same name (British Library, 2013) His latest book published in August is, Germany and Propaganda in World War I. Pacifism, Mobilization and Total War (I.B. Tauris, 2014). He is currently writing a history of propaganda in the Second World War, World War II Propaganda. Documents Decoded (ABC-Clio, 2015) and he has contributed to the Oxford Illustrated History of World War II (OUP, 2015).

This talk is part of a series of events accompanying the exhibition 'Why War', 6 August - 19 October 2014.