| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 96.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 96.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Selling the American Way: U.S. Propaganda and the Cold War. By Laura A. Belmonte. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. xiv, 255 pp. $47.50, ISBN 978-0-8122-4082-5.)

"There are two kinds of propaganda," said the documentary filmmaker Kevin Rafferty, "propaganda when you know you're lying and propaganda when you think you're telling the truth" (p. 178). Best known for his hilarious composition of civil defense films, Atomic Café (1982), Rafferty understood that when it comes to propaganda it is often impossible to discern where entrenched beliefs end and deliberate distortions begin. This theme runs through Laura A. Belmonte's thoughtful analysis of American propaganda during the early Cold War. Policy makers and propagandists who sold the American way of life with almost missionary fervor self-consciously intended to manipulate foreign perceptions, but in doing so they projected their deeply held beliefs about their country's national identity.

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