Conceiving Revolution: Irish Nationalist Propaganda during the First World War.
Author: NOVICK, Ben.
Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2001. 272 pages. Illustrated. Hardback.
“This book argues that the Great War was the central theme in Irish advanced nationalist propaganda and that anti-war feelings were encouraged before the Easter Rising and exploited to build support for Sinn Fein after it began to mount electoral challenges to the Irish Parliamentary Party in 1917.
Drawing on a complete set of the advanced nationalist press, and uncatalogued , collections of ephemera in the UK, Ireland, and the United States, Conceiving revolution explores the links between the First World War and propagandistic writing through a series of thematic studies — Irish nationalist support for Irish troops in the British army; reactions to atrocity propaganda; the use of moralistic propaganda; and the exploitation of agrarian issues. The final part of this book examines what the author has called a ‘brutalisation of discourse’ by looking at two general styles of propaganda - the use of humour, and the use of aggression.. By linking support of advanced nationalists with halting the slaughter of war, propagandists helped to simultaneously shatter pro-war propaganda and smooth the way for the advent of a revolutionary government in Ireland.
Ben Novick lectures in history at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Oakland University, USA.”
ISBN: 1851826203
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