Information at War

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.

• 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