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alibi_shopI've been volunteering as a reader/narrator on the free audiobook site LibriVox, which makes recordings of public-domain material that's usually from Project Gutenberg. I thought I would start posting about those projects here, both for anyone who for some reason wants to hear me read stuff, and also because it's been an interesting assortment of stuff I mostly hadn't seen before (generally LibriVox volunteers don't contribute things out of the blue, but sign onto projects someone has proposed and maybe read just a few chapters in each book). Due to the vagaries of copyright law, a lot of the books are from the 19th or early 20th century but once in a while there'll be something a little more recent that's in the public domain.
Psychological Warfare, by Paul M.A. Linebarger (2nd edition, 1954)
text - audiobook (11 hrs 47 min; I read 2h 21m of it)
This is a nonfiction treatise by a scholar and US Army officer who worked in propaganda and media relations for the Allies during World War Two. He's better known for his science fiction written as Cordwainer Smith, which is why I was interested in reading this.
That fiction is hard to describe, but if you're a fan you know how distinctive his style and point of of view are, and I think it's interesting to see them being applied to something he thought of as a professional rather than a creative task; it's easy to see that it's the same guy. This is a book about how to do war and how to persuade and/or deceive people, so it's detached and sometimes cold-blooded as you'd expect, but there's an empathetic and quirky aspect too: he's into people and thinks they are fascinating and lovable, even if they're enemies to be overpowered or bamboozled. He also clearly loves writing, and while he's trying to find a tone that'll make sense to practical-minded military types, he can't help being creative—sometimes pretty funny in a dry professorial style, other times throwing in a startlingly evocative phrase like "Psychological strategy is planned along the edge of nightmare."
His own opinions are straightforwardly present. He takes American goodness for granted; he has no patience for jingoism; his anti-communism isn't so much about thinking their ideology is evil as about being suspicious of fanatics. Very frustrated with incompetence and inflexibility on his own side, but more cranky than angry.
The book focuses largely on World War Two as you'd expect, but there's an overview of propaganda-related incidents throughout history which is really interesting, including a scathing critique of the shoddy quality of John Milton's anti-Quaker libel; the story of the "Vulgar Wiseman" incident, where a propaganda effort was pranked from within; and the claim that Genghis Khan's greatest tactic was spreading rumors that his army was much bigger than it really was.
Psychological Warfare, by Paul M.A. Linebarger (2nd edition, 1954)
text - audiobook (11 hrs 47 min; I read 2h 21m of it)
This is a nonfiction treatise by a scholar and US Army officer who worked in propaganda and media relations for the Allies during World War Two. He's better known for his science fiction written as Cordwainer Smith, which is why I was interested in reading this.
That fiction is hard to describe, but if you're a fan you know how distinctive his style and point of of view are, and I think it's interesting to see them being applied to something he thought of as a professional rather than a creative task; it's easy to see that it's the same guy. This is a book about how to do war and how to persuade and/or deceive people, so it's detached and sometimes cold-blooded as you'd expect, but there's an empathetic and quirky aspect too: he's into people and thinks they are fascinating and lovable, even if they're enemies to be overpowered or bamboozled. He also clearly loves writing, and while he's trying to find a tone that'll make sense to practical-minded military types, he can't help being creative—sometimes pretty funny in a dry professorial style, other times throwing in a startlingly evocative phrase like "Psychological strategy is planned along the edge of nightmare."
His own opinions are straightforwardly present. He takes American goodness for granted; he has no patience for jingoism; his anti-communism isn't so much about thinking their ideology is evil as about being suspicious of fanatics. Very frustrated with incompetence and inflexibility on his own side, but more cranky than angry.
The book focuses largely on World War Two as you'd expect, but there's an overview of propaganda-related incidents throughout history which is really interesting, including a scathing critique of the shoddy quality of John Milton's anti-Quaker libel; the story of the "Vulgar Wiseman" incident, where a propaganda effort was pranked from within; and the claim that Genghis Khan's greatest tactic was spreading rumors that his army was much bigger than it really was.
