From Quills to Tweets: How America Communicates about War and Revolution

While today's presidential tweets may seem a light-year apart from the scratch of quill pens during the era of the American Revolution, the importance of political communication is eternal. This book explores the roles that political narratives, media coverage, and evolving communication technologies have played in precipitating, shaping, and concluding or prolonging wars and revolutions over the course of US history. The case studies begin with the Sons of Liberty in the era of the American Revolution, cover American wars in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and conclude with a look at the conflict against ISIS in the Trump era. Special chapters also examine how propagandists shaped American perceptions of two revolutions of international significance: the Russian Revolution and the Chinese Revolution. Each chapter analyzes its subject through the lens of the messengers, messages, and communications-technology-media to reveal the effects on public opinion and the trajectory and conduct of the conflict. The chapters collectively provide an overview of the history of American strategic communications on wars and revolutions that will interest scholars, students, and communications strategists.

Andrea J. Dew is the Maritime Irregular Warfare Forces Chair and Co-Director of the Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups at the US Naval War College.

Marc A. Genest is the Forrest Sherman Professor of Public Diplomacy in the Strategy and Policy Department at the US Naval War College.

S. C. M. Paine is the William S. Sims University Professor of History and Grand Strategy at the US Naval War College.