Examining the public information strategies employed by the League of Nations between 1919 and 1940, this book brings together international history, intellectual history and the history of communications to tell the story of how officials in Geneva planned for a new kind of public relations to underpin and strengthen the League’s internationalist project. Drawing on multi-archival work and shedding light on the role played by journalists in international diplomacy, it follows in the footsteps of individuals who left promising careers to work for the League's information section and shape opinion on a global scale.
Showcasing their vision for an open diplomacy and an informed international public, Seidenfaden shows how this was sought for and achieved against the politically charged backdrop of interwar Europe. Moving beyond the outbreak of WWII, it also shows the legacies that remained after the League was in hiatus, and many of its officials in exile. In doing so, this book reveals how public information strategies developed by the League were transferred into its successor organisation, the United Nations, which continues to shape our world today.
Introduction Part I: Thinking League Information, 1919-1932 1. Centre of World Information: Creating an Information Section, 1919-1921 2. More than a Press Bureau: The Work of the Information Section, 1919-1932 3. Confidence and Complacency: League Public Information Material, 1919-1932 Part II: New Purposes and Old Narratives, 1933-1946 4. Rethinking League Information: Reorganization of the Information Section, 1933-1934 5. Retreat to Aesthetics: League Public Information, 1933-1940 6. Exit Geneva: Tracing League Legacies in UN Publicity, 1942-1946 Conclusion
Emil Eiby Seidenfaden is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He has previously held research and lecturer posts at the University of Oxford, UK, and Aarhus University, Denmark.
Reviews for Informing Interwar Internationalism: The Information Strategies of the League of Nations
This book represents a very welcome addition to existing scholarship. * European History Quarterly *
