Nicholas J. Cull is Professor of Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California. He is the author of Selling War; The British Propaganda Campaign Against American 'Neutrality' in World War II and the co-editor (with David Culbert and David Welch) of Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a member of the Public Diplomacy Council, and President of the International Association for Media and History.

• Prologue: the foundations of US information overseas; 1. Getting the sheep to speak: the Truman years, 1945–53; 2. Mobilizing 'the P-Factor': Eisenhower and the birth of the USIA, 1953–6; 3. In the shadow of Sputnik: the second Eisenhower administration, 1957–61; 4. Inventing truth: the Kennedy administration, 1961–3; 5. Maintaining confidence: the early Johnson years, 1963–5; 6. 'My radio station': the Johnson administration, 1965–9; 7. Surviving détente: the Nixon years, 1969–74; 8. A new beginning: the Ford administration, 1974–7; 9. From the 'two-way' mandate to the second Cold War: the Carter administration, 1977–81; 10. 'Project Truth': the first Reagan administration, 1981–4; 11. Showdown: the second Reagan administration, 1985–9; Epilogue: victory and the strange death of the USIA, 1989–99; Conclusion: trajectories, maps, and lessons from the past of US public diplomacy.

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