THERE ARE, roughly speaking, only two ways of moving people: force and persuasion. The latter is a form of communication and involves the use of man's most potent device-symbols. When persuasion is called propaganda a reaction is aroused in many people that is a curious blend of distrust and faith-a type of response not unlike that found among certain primitives toward the magic incantations of their priests. For them, propaganda is something to be banished from human intercourse entirely, but at the same time almost miraculous powers are ascribed to it and they are willing to invoke its aid in their own interests. These conflicting attitudes seem to have their origins in the climate of disillusionment of the twenties when the official propagandists of World War I rather casually revealed their operations. It was quite a story they told to a generation already deeply suspicious of ideals and ideologies, a story of tricks, invented atrocities, and distortions. With the appearance of the great mass media of communication and the development of systematic research programs by social scientists, the whole field of propaganda and mass communication is seen in a different and, scientifically speaking, a more comprehensible context. It moves from the realm of magic and myth, tricks and gimmicks, to the realm of formal theory, systematic hypotheses, and trained observation and analysis. It is against this background that Propaganda in War and Crisis (George W. Stewart, New York, 1951) is to be considered. In this book the editor, Daniel Lerner, has brought together a group of papers which clarify the nature and present role of propaganda in world affairs. The nervous layman-and he is still nervous-who really wants to understand the subject may here discover that propaganda, now labeled psychological warfare, is not more fear-