Über das Buch

Rezension

„[...] überzeugt B.s Edition. Der nun zugängliche Text der Historia bietet eine ausgezeichnete Grundlage für weitere wissenschaftliche Forschungen.“

– Remigius Stachowiak in: Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung, ZfO 69 (2020) 4

Zum Inhalt

„Dr. Klaudiusz Bobowski’s book on the British propaganda booklets of the 1940s concerns an important part of the historical and sociological background of World War II. The British Council booklets were meant to be read by Polish military personnel in the British armed forces as an introduction of sorts to the culture and the civilization of Britain. At the same time the booklets were in many ways subject to biases and as such furnish Bobowski with many examples of what the British political and cultural discourse was at the time. The most striking of those examples is perhaps the complete absence of the one figure who, it would seem, could most perfectly connect the British and the Polish cultural horizon, namely Joseph Conrad.

One evident strength of the book is drawing the readers’ attention to the existence of this form of mild propaganda and its analysis. Despite some omissions and other drawbacks, the British Council pamphlets are a testimony to the high level of both the British information services and to the intellectual level of the Polish soldiers. One may only ask what this sort of propaganda would look like now.

[...]

Overall, as an outsider to the field – I am a comparatist, not an historian or a cultural critic – I see the value of the book in its attention to the somewhat ephemeral, secondary material that, however, reflects key trends of the contemporary political and cultural scene.“

Prof. Katarzyna Jerzak, Pomeranian University [...]

Schlagworte

Kulturwissenschaft, Literaturwissenschaft, Geschichte, Propaganda, British Council, Zweiter Weltkrieg, Großbritannien, Polen, Cultural studies, History, Literary studies, Propaganda, World War II, Great Britain, Poland, Cultural propaganda