The Newspaper Axis, Kathryn S. Olmsted
The Newspaper Axis, Kathryn S. Olmsted
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The Newspaper Axis
Six Press Barons Who Enabled Hitler

Author: Kathryn S. Olmsted

Narrator: Katherine Fenton

Unabridged: 11 hr 40 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/22/2022


Synopsis

How six conservative media moguls hindered America and Britain from entering World War IIHow six conservative media moguls hindered America and Britain from entering World War II


“A landmark in the political history of journalism.”—Michael Kazin, author of What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party


As World War II approached, the six most powerful media moguls in America and Britain tried to pressure their countries to ignore the fascist threat. The media empires of Robert McCormick, Joseph and Eleanor Patterson, and William Randolph Hearst spanned the United States, reaching tens of millions of Americans in print and over the airwaves with their isolationist views. Meanwhile in England, Lord Rothermere’s Daily Mail extolled Hitler’s leadership and Lord Beaverbrook’s Daily Express insisted that Britain had no interest in defending Hitler’s victims on the continent.


Kathryn S. Olmsted shows how these media titans worked in concert—including sharing editorial pieces and coordinating their responses to events—to influence public opinion in a right-wing populist direction, how they echoed fascist and anti‑Semitic propaganda, and how they weakened and delayed both Britain’s and America’s response to Nazi aggression.

About Kathryn S. Olmsted

Kathryn S. Olmsted is a professor of history at the University of California, Davis.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Marshall on October 07, 2022

It’s amazing to see that in America very little has changed. The poisonous rhetoric that press barons such as Hearst, Col McCormick and his Patterson cousins indulged in is still alive and well. The insistence on racial superiority, white Protestant racial superiority (though these days more Fundame......more

Goodreads review by Vovka on January 31, 2024

Fascinating history of print news media focused on the period before, during, and after WWII. In short, the newspaper tycoons profiled here supported Nazi Germany through a variety of methods, from fake news to one-sided editorial policies. It's a convention of history writing to avoid certain types......more

Goodreads review by Ernest on October 26, 2022

Fascinating little book. Growing up as I did, in the 1950´s and 60´s, on a diet of World War II era animated cartoons, in the afternoons after school, and an occasional matinee movie showcasing the heroics of our fighting men in Europe and the Pacific I, wrongly as it turns out, thought Americans of......more

Goodreads review by Armaan on May 22, 2022

The book explores how the press barons worked in both the US and the UK and the impact and they had over domestic politics and foreign policy. I've read many books on wars but this book gave a very deep insight into how media influence played a role within the allied countries. Although the book is......more

Goodreads review by Margot on March 31, 2023

Very entertaining, despite the unnecessarily lurid cover. Author Olmsted seems to think the Groton School is in Connecticut...why did Yale University Press not catch this error? Groton CT is big submarines, not in prep schools. I think Cissy Patterson was a star. Author Olmsted rather over-eggs the......more