Parergon

This study explores in great detail an area of research which has become popular in recent years and has previously been brought to our attention in the work of Joad Raymond and especially his recent Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in Early Modern Britain.

Jason Peacey's book is a focused look at a phenomenon which accompanied the print revolution in early-modern England, but which is rarely called by a name which conjures up negative images of manipulation and which has become too closely associated with the Nazi era. Peacey, however, has no problems linking both authors and politicians with propaganda and provides his readers with a closely argued and deeply researched journey through the political and polemical literature which was produced between 1640 and 1660. In his exploration of the motives behind the lemming-like rush into print it is a pity that he has not included more conventionally 'literary' offerings since much of the poetry, drama and letters which appeared in this period might also be classed as opportunistic propaganda. However, having set out his agenda clearly in the introduction, Peacey examines the impulses and opportunities for politicians to reach a wider public than ever before looking at the 'rhetoric of authorship' (p. 67) and the way print might serve an image of the public good. Peacey is incisive about exposing the mixed motives [End Page 251] of many authors and the tension between a desire for personal recognition and the importance of getting a message across.

The 'pamphlet wars' which were already raging on topics such as the evils of drink intensified in this period, and Peacey looks at readers, printers and writers in a chapter on decoding pamphlets. His voluminous reading is well documented in the footnotes which are printed (how nice for the reader) where they should be, in this beautifully produced volume. Testimony to Peacey's mastery of primary sources is abundant and the book provides an excellent reference source for anyone working in this area. Peacey's assertion that parliamentarian propaganda became far more professional than that produced by the royalists intrigued me as many authors on both sides engaged continually in 'tit for tat' polemics.

Peacey uses biographical as well as contextual research to develop his argument, tracing networks of obligation and trends in the relationship between writers, printers and the law. The licensing laws are unravelled with some un-intentioned humour as the author relates attempts by disgruntled individuals of all persuasions to investigate or suppress writings that attacked them. There is no doubt that truth was a continual casualty. The Dutch Ambassador complained in 1651 about the revival of stories about Dutch atrocities but Parliament 'thinking it seasonable service done to the public' took no notice (p. 165).

One of the useful things about this study is the way it brings out the existence of an increasingly literate and argumentative 'public' which politicians sought to reach. The form and content of the propaganda produced in the mid-century points to the perceived importance of public support and to the re-appraisal of texts in the public domain. This domain, verging on the 'public sphere' which Habermas identified as forming in the eighteenth-century existed in print, rather than in coffee-houses or other public spaces as Peacey's careful dissection of the material shows. His book ends, however, at a point which invites further elucidation. McLuhan, now back in vogue, gets a mention as Peacey concludes that the print revolution created opportunities both for a greater democratization of learning and at the same time a new capacity for manipulation and control of opinion. Politicians and Pamphleteers is perhaps too specialized for the general student of the civil wars period, but it would make a great addition to the curriculum for students of journalism and I hope it reaches further than departments of literature and history.