Propaganda: Power and Persuasion – great exhibition at the British Library

This afternoon I took a look round the British Library‘s latest exhibition, Propaganda: Power and Persuasion. I was about to go on and type that I enjoyed it greatly, but that’s not quite right, as the footage from Nazi anti-Jewish films was sickening.

Part entertaining, especially the ineptness of the Saddam Hussein radio station during the first Gulf War, part educational and part grim more like. Whatever the mix, it’s well worth going to see before it closes on 17 September.

Even if you are familiar with the topic, the quality of the exhibits and the sharpness of the insights means you’ll almost certainly find something new to chew over.

For me, it was learning more about how Martin Luther used smart techniques to make his anti-Papal propaganda more effective, not only writing in German rather than Latin but also using cartoons too so that even those who could not read were able to receive and understand his message. The example illustrating this post shows the Pope as a donkey.

One small gripe. Perhaps it was bad luck as I didn’t watch all the recorded clips of experts in full. But I think the only experts I saw being asked to talk about propaganda were white men. An oddly limited slice of the experts out there.

If you do go, make sure you also take a trip down into the basement, following the signs to the toilets. On the way you’ll pass the best piece of optical illusion art I’ve ever seen. It’s an amazing scene with bookcases which move around as you walk back and forth in front of it. Always makes for a great bonus when visiting the British Library for other reasons.