Ministry of Truth

An authoritative, wide-ranging, and incredibly timely history of 1984 — its literary sources, its composition by Orwell, its deep and lasting effect on the Cold War, and its vast influence throughout world culture at every level, from high to pop.

1984 isn’t just a novel; it’s a key to understanding the modern world. George Orwell’s final work is a treasure chest of ideas and memes — Big Brother, the Thought Police, Doublethink, Newspeak, 2+2=5 — that gain potency with every year. Particularly in 2016, when the election of Donald Trump made it a bestseller (“Ministry of Alternative Facts,” anyone?). Its influence has morphed endlessly into novels (The Handmaid’s Tale), films (Brazil), television shows (V for Vendetta), rock albums (Diamond Dogs), commercials (Apple), even reality TV (Big Brother). The Ministry of Truth is the first book that fully examines the epochal and cultural event that is 1984 in all its aspects: its roots in the utopian and dystopian literature that preceded it; the personal experiences in wartime Great Britain that Orwell drew on as he struggled to finish his masterpiece in his dying days; and the political and cultural phenomena that the novel ignited at once upon publication and that far from subsiding, have only grown over the decades. It explains how fiction history informs fiction and how fiction explains history.

“Arresting...[The Ministry of Truth] joins the dots between the age of fake news and Orwell’s work.” The Economist

“Thoroughly researched and wear[s] its scholarship lightly....Cheeringly downbeat....This astute study locates the origins of the novel and its life within pop culture.” The Guardian

“Perhaps the best book of its kind that I’ve ever read. The portrait it provides of Orwell is sharp, nuanced, and moving, and its capsule histories of the major and minor planets in orbit around 1984 are surprising and deeply informative. Above all, it’s just flat out fun to read. With The Ministry of Truth, Dorian Lynskey has done anyone who loves literature a great service.” Tom Bissell, author of Apostle and co-author of The Disaster Artist

Dorian Lynskey has been writing about music, film, and politics for more than 20 years for publications including The Guardian, The Observer, GQ, Q, Empire, Billboard, and The New Statesman. His first book, 33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs (Ecco), was published in 2011.

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