Mr. Pomerantsev relies heavily on the work of historians and biographers, as well as on Delmer’s own memoirs. But the book possesses virtues that make it more than a simple retelling. First, Mr. Pomerantsev writes in a lucid, ironical style that is a pleasure to read ... The reader who expects a tidy set of instructions about "how to fight an information war" in 2024 will be disappointed. This is not that kind of book. Instead, it paints a memorable portrait of a communicator whose genius was not tied to a particular medium of communication.
Pomerantsev offers a sometimes colorful story of Delmer’s exploits, but ... the lessons of How to Win an Information War are mostly relegated to familiar bromides ... Things become even more dubious when Pomerantsev explores the theories of psychoanalysis, then in vogue, that animated British counter-propaganda efforts.
How to Win an Information War succeeds brilliantly in shedding light on the first question that Pomerantsev sought to answer: namely, what makes people susceptible to the blindness that propaganda can create? But the book’s real importance lies in the fact that it ultimately fails to provide the answer to his second question: how might people be induced to break out of it? Pomerantsev does not find a silver bullet.
