As the authors acknowledge in their introduction to the Historical Dictionary of American Propaganda, the word 'propaganda' is not only notoriously difficult to define, it is also mired in negative connotations. It is, as they call it, 'the hated P-word.' It evokes a sinister form of communication, involving deception, censorship and intimidation. We prefer to ascribe it to others. We don't do propaganda. The modern democratic societies of the West, having sought to define their values by reiterating their contrast with those of the 'totalitarian' states - pre-eminently, the Third Reich and the Soviet Union - ­have regarded propaganda as the name of the lies of our enemies. What we do is 'public education,' 'information programs,' winning hearts and minds....

Manning and Romerstein will have none of this squeamishness. Their dictionary takes a bold and refreshingly neutral view of America's extensive relationship with propaganda, and embraces a very wide range of discourses and contexts. The coverage is particularly thorough in the areas of US government and military organisations of the Second World War, such as the Office of War Information (OWl) and the Psychological Warfare Division (PWD), and those that succeeded them in a shifting network of domestic and overseas organisations dominated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the US Congress House Committee on Un-American Activities. The inclusive approach is attentive to the global dimensions of the audiences of American propaganda, and recounts the remarkably varied, and sometimes bizarre efforts to win over these audiences (mainly against Soviet competitors) in South East Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

The only limit to this breadth of coverage is the bias towards the twentieth century. This reasonably reflects the expansion of mass communications media during this period and the much greater role played by public opinion in political life. Inevitably, the Second World War and the Cold War period provide the principal arenas of ideological conflict. But the dictionary does include earlier contexts, with interesting entries covering the American Revolution, Abolitionism, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and many examples of political journalism and literature from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Beyond the activities of state bureaucracies, the production of propaganda is recognised in the battles fought by the grass-roots, voluntary organisations which have clamoured from all points on the political spectrum. This makes for some strange bedfellows: the Ku Klux Klan, the Sons of Liberty, and the Catholic Church. What might we learn by comparing the discursive strategies of these different bodies? Under what other category would we find brought together the extravagant personalities of John Wayne, Thomas Paine, Ezra Pound, Wait Disney, Paul Robeson, and William 'Lord Haw-Haw' Joyce? Oddly, these combinations are enlightening. We compare, for example, the radio broadcasts made from Nazi Germany by P.G. Wodehouse, whose reputation has never recovered from the blemish of his ill-judged satire, with the tragedy of 'Tokyo Rose.' Also known as 'Orphan Annie - your favourite enemy,' she was not a real person, but the name US servicemen gave, apparently affectionately, to the voice of a dozen Japanese women who broadcast their radio messages of wistful demoralisation to the homesick Gl’s in the Pacific. One of the women, Iva Ikuko Toguri d'Aquino, was hunted down by the American government after the war, and served ten years in prison.

There are gaps, of course. The vibrant expressions of America's counter-culture, spreading beyond the anti-Vietnam war movement into the causes of psychedelic 'consciousness raising,' radical feminism and gay rights during the 1970s, are under-represented, given the extent to which these have undoubtedly shaped our views of the world, and the ways we might express them. Entries under the general headings of film, radio and television outline the propaganda uses of these media, but there is no comparable entry on the emergence of the Internet as a tool of political communication.

Nevertheless, the approach of the dictionary is one of unfussy inclusiveness, revealing not only the dark works of repressive state propaganda, but also the remarkable energy, creativity, and often, sheer daftness of the modern world's political imagination.

Almost every entry is accompanied by a 'further reading' list of books and journal articles, and there is a select bibliography, a chronology of important events and a detailed list of American research collections and film, TV and radio archives.

The Historical Dictionary of American Propaganda should have broad appeal, serving as an accessible cross-disciplinary reference resource for the study of politics, history, media studies, literature, art history, and sociology, as well as general interest.