Propaganda

This is the original, 1928 book on propaganda that prominently (and controversially) laid the practice, and its massive impact, to bear on the public. It is endlessly fascinating — not just the book itself, but the story behind it.

Bernays is himself a proclaimed propagandist and defender of the term as a job title. He cites the historical shift from propaganda’s 16th century Vatican roots, from which the practice was regarded as completely kosher and in fact celebrated, to the use of propaganda in WW1 and WW2, where Nazi and United States war propaganda tarred the word. This book was actually Bernay’s failed attempt to revive the word “propaganda” as a neutral or good thing, by making the argument that propaganda is simply the same as public relations or public affairs, and detailing in practical terms why.

The book also hilariously serves as an add for Bernay’s services as a PR man, detailing all his past successes (in 3rd person or otherwise indirectly). The grand irony of the book is that, while Bernays utterly fails in historical retrospect to revive the term, his statement that most forms of today’s media, communications, and “public affairs” are essentially propaganda, could not be more true.