Stories are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American MindBy Annalee NewitzW.W. Norton and Company, 2024

Stories Are Weapons represents a welcome contribution to the literature on information warfare. It synthesizes reflection on the last decade with contemporary interviews and archival research. Drawing on records from the Propaganda and Psychological Warfare archive at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, Analee Newitz probes the relationship between psychology, advertising, and the emergence of psychological warfare. They also illuminate the role of 20th century science fiction authors in the solidification of the U.S. military’s psychological warfare doctrine after World War II. However, Newitz’s most controversial contribution is their treatment of the American culture war, which some readers will find biased or polemical. However, no one should skip the book on this count.

Newitz begins with World War I, when the U.S. military’s propaganda and psychological operations (psy-ops)—these concepts were synonymous at the time—were helmed by the influential Walter Lippman. It segues to the emergence of modern psychology under Sigmund Freud, and the appropriation of his ideas by his nephew, Edward Bernays, the father of public relations, who applied Freud’s work in the advertising industry.

Over time, psy-ops became associated with the military, propaganda less so. Today, propaganda is a grey area between information warfare and advertising partly because debates between these titans were never resolved. In Public Opinion, for example, Lippman argues that democratic public life is eroded by propaganda.Freud agrees that propaganda is corrosive to civil society, but his nephew sees it as everyday communication. In Crystalizing Public Opinion, Bernays........

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