Voice of Civilisation: advertising and its critics in austerity Britain

The advertising industry was on the defensive during World War Two, with advertising regarded by many British people as deeply unpatriotic, potentially undermining the national interest and the fight against fascism. This article analyses the debate on the role of advertising in Britain in the immediate aftermath of war, when the advertising industry regrouped to meet the challenge of working within an economic environment shaped by the imperatives of a Labour government committed to wide scale state intervention. Critics of advertising within the labour movement were emboldened by this context, and the industry was threatened with punitive taxation in 1947. Focusing particularly on this flashpoint and its aftermath, the article sheds new light on the increasingly open struggle between private enterprise and state planning during this volatile period.     

Book reviews

The Agguyunlu: Clan, Confederation, Empire. A Study in 15th/9th Century Turko‐Iranian Politics. By John E. Woods. (Studies in Middle Eastern History, No. 3), xv + 348 pp. Minneapolis and Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1976.

A Persian Stronghold of Zoroastrianism. By Mary Boyce. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. 284 pp. $19.95.

The Crowned Cannibals: Writings on Repression in Iran. By Reza Baraheni. With an introduction by E. L. Doctorow. New York: Random House/Vintage Books, 1977. 279 pp. $3.95.

Tarikh: Bulletin of the Department of History, Faculty of Letters and Humanities. Tehran: University of Tehran. Vol. 1, Nos. 1–2 (1976–77).

Middle East Economies in the 1970's: A Comparative Approach. By Hossein Askari and John Thomas Cummings. New York: Praeger Publishers (Praeger Special Studies in International Economics and Development). 1976. xxxiii + 581pp.

The Caspian Circle: A Novel. By Donné Raffat. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1978. 350 pp. $10.

The Agricultural Development of Iran. By Oddvar Aresvik. New York: Praeger, 1976. 271 pp.

Dschalaluddin Rumi, Licht und Reigen: Gedichte aus dem Divan des grössten mystischen Dichters persischer Zunge. Selected, translated and explained by Johann Cristoph Burgel. UNESCO Collection of Representative Works. Masterpieces of Persian Literature Series, No. 26. Bern, Herbert Lang, and Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1974. 191 pp.