The short-lived Ministry of Information (MoI, 1939–1946) had an outsized impact. It played a key role in the allied war effort, and its work has reverberated in British culture ever since, from its much darker version (as the 'Ministry of Truth') in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four to memes based on the slogan 'Keep Calm and Carry On'. But despite its long legacy, it has been the subject of limited scholarly investigation.
This multi-authored volume corrects this by offering the first comprehensive and global history of the MoI, which introduced something new to British society: the idea of a formal state mechanism to issue and control information. In consequence it was an inherently ambivalent institution: its negative side (the threat of an un-British level of state control) could be offset by the MoI's perceived ability to generate a sense of national purpose at a time of crisis. The remit of the MoI extended far beyond war-time propaganda and the home front, and the book demonstrates the remarkable breadth and depth of its activities: it attempted to justify Britain's empire in varied ways; it was active across a range of media, from pamphlets and posters to public meetings, films and exhibitions; and it was truly transcontintental, with a consolidated presence in many countries in Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe.
The book sheds light on an important but little-understood chapter of British wartime history and the final days of the British Empire. The lively and highly illustrated chapters raise important and timely questions about the nature of state surveillance, information, and propaganda in an increasingly global world.
The MoI had a global impact during the war and its work has reverberated in British culture ever since, from Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four to memes based on the slogan 'Keep Calm and Carry On'. The book discusses the development of the Ministry, those who worked for it, and the many audiences it addressed, both in Britain and internationally.
Simon Eliot and Henry Irving: Introduction PART I EVOLUTION 1: Henry
Irving: The Planning Stage, 1935-9 2: Henry Irving: Confusion, 1939-40 3:
Henry Irving: The Limits of Influence, 1940-1 4: Henry Irving: Efficiency
over Power, 1941-6 PART II OPERATION 5: Simon Eliot: Life in Senate House
6: Henry Irving: News Management and Censorship 7: Simon Eliot: The Postal
and Telegraph Censorship 8: Simon Eliot and Henry Irving: Home Intelligence,
Morale, and Market Research 9: Simon Eliot: Publications Mostly for British
Readers 10: Simon Eliot: Publications Mostly for Readers Abroad 11: Simon
Eliot and Jane McArthur: Photographs Division, the Graphic Arts, and
Censorship 12: Jenna Lundin Aral: The Exhibitions Division 13: Simon Eliot
and Hollie Price: The Films Division 14: Simon Eliot: Public Meetings Part
III Combined Operations 15: Henry Irving: Home Publicity Campaigns 16: Louis
Allday, Christopher Bannister and Marc Wiggam: Campaigns Abroad 17: Simon
Eliot and Marc Wiggam: The Regions and Their Histories Part IV Legacy 18:
Simon Eliot, Katherine M. Howells and Henry Irving: The Afterlife of the
Ministry of Information
Simon Eliot is Professor Emeritus of the History of the Book, IES, School of Advanced Study, University of London. He is co-founder and served as second president of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing. He is the author of over fifty articles and of Some Patterns and Trends in British Publishing, 1800-1919 (1994); co-editor of Publishers' Circular/English Catalogue 1837-1900 (1988), Literary Cultures and the Material Book (2007), The Blackwell Companion to the History of the Book (2007, 2019), Allied Communication to the Public during the Second World War (2020); and general editor of The History of Oxford University Press (four volumes, 2013-17).
Henry Irving is a Senior Lecturer in Public History at Leeds Beckett University. He has worked on the project 'A Communication History of the Ministry of Information' since 2014. Henry specialises in the MoI's work on the 'home front'. His research has been published in leading journals, including the English Historical Review and Historical Research, and collections, most recently The Routledge Handbook of Information History (2025). His research has also been felt in the classroom, where his students often find themselves asked to censor a newspaper report or devise a publicity campaign. Henry is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and has held a British Academy Innovation Fellowship to apply his knowledge of wartime publicity to the promotion of the circular economy. Information at War is his first book.
