The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and The Birth of Public Relations

Read this long time ago. If you want to find out why you buy certain items & not others, this book will inform you. This is a fascinating look behind advertising strategies.

Edward L. Bernays was extremely influential on our world, yet relatively few people have even heard of him. Of course, the first thing to know about him was that he was Sigmund Freud’s American nephew. His mother was Freud’s sister. His father was the brother of Freud’s wife. The Bernayses emigrated to America when Edward was a child. Bernays senior became successful in the shipping industry, but wanted his son to be a farmer and sent him to agricultural college. After he graduated, Edward knew he wanted no part of farm life and considered his college years wasted. But from such a beginning, this son of Austrian Jews created what is now called “Public Relations.” But he spent childhood and teenage holidays in Austria with “Uncle Sigi,” and according to Bernays, they were close. Obviously Sigi’s thinking was a big influence on Edward. But what’s missing in this book is that “Eureka” moment when Edward Bernays saw that he could use his uncle’s theories to manipulate the public on a mass scale subliminally through the use of symbols. Was he the first to see that there was a practical, money-making application for his uncle’s work? Those questions are not asked here. But Tye spends a lot of time on questions like “who REALLY invented public relations?” and quibbles over definitions. Maybe to people in the field of public relations, those questions are important, but to the general reader, they are of little interest. I basically enjoyed the book and I’m glad I read it, but it didn’t really give me what I wanted.

Edward Bernays was a POS. Nephew of Sigmund Freud, orchestrator of countless ad campaigns designed to alter public opinion for profit, power and war, etc. Hes the reason women started smoking and why americans think breakfast is bacon and eggs. He was tied to government campaigns and countless secret ventures we will never know of. The book didnt get as in depth with everything he did as id like. But its a good starting place for researching this subject and man.

If there was ever a "must" read, this is it. HOW we are manipulated by shysters and hucksters 24/7, all of our lives. Always convincing us of what we 'need' according to them. It's shameful, but real. I have several copies and make it mandatory for my 1st and 2nd year college students who want to major in 'marketing.' More honest to be a lawyer or a priest...who are also trying to sell us something we don't need.

More people need to be aware of this Evil Genius. He not only invented Propaganda (Goebels thought this was great) but had to subsequently rename his approach to 'Public Relations' as the nazi endorsement was hurting him in the USA. His techniques now form the core of emotional manipulation in mass marketing but in manipulating voters at all levels of politics.

Amazing insight into the tactics used by the father of pr

This book is very helpful to understand the essence of PR.

This is a book everyone should read. It is so enlightening and answers so many questions . I gave 2 programs- one to my literary group and another to my library book group. It is amazing that noone had heard of Edward Bernays. the programsreceived an overwhelmingly positive response.

This is a biorgraphy of a man whose ethical and moral compass was undoubtedly skewed, a man full of contradictions, self aggrandising, bombastic, self promoting (and not above spinning his own achievements to suit his cause) but driven and with a passion for his work. He lived through virtually the whole of the 20th centuary and left a disproportionate mark on the 21st centuary and helped create the socio-economic world we now live in!Not only did he, literally, write the book on PR/Spin, Bernays was the man who made it cool for women to smoke, yet actively tried to get his wife to stop smoking. He also made eating the "heart attack special" breakfast of bacon and eggs popular. He promoted equality yet ran his own house like a middle ages robber baron. If he wasn't the centre of attraction he either made himself so or withdrew and victimised anyone who crossed him!His tactics, which apparently have stood the test of time and are still the basis of much of todays PR campaigns (focus grooups, media reports, promotion/sponsorship of events, and even early forerunners of flash mobs!, etc.) generally involved subterfuge and mis-direction.More worryingly he used his skills to overthrow a central America government because they were reforming their country and trying to force his client company to treat their workforce better and threatening their profits!The book itself is rather bland and skirts over many things and, almost, appears to just give the salatious details (the only problem is they aren't really salatious!). Its style is rather dry and ponderous and the personality of Bernays doesn't really come out in anything more than a one dimensional sense.Yet for all this his mark, for good or ill, was immense and whilst Bernays doesn't come out of this book well you have to admit he certainly had an impact! To (mis)quote "love him or hate him you can't ignore him"!

Fantastic brilliant amazing superb goodExcellent book which explains many things about public relation and pertinently the advent of cigarette smoking in the USA through the inducement of advertising.

It was fine. I was interested in the man and it delivered but there was something about it that didn’t quite gel. Maybe too much reliance on what Bernard said about himself and not enough contextual analysis.

One of the best reconstructions of the history of Public Relations as a professional art shaping contemporary society. Many of the developments happened after the death of Edward Bernays, have been anticipated by his ideas and experiences.

I would not recommend this book to anyone who is not already quite familiar with the work of Edward Bernays. One can tell that the author spend a very long time researching and analysing his character, as he talks about him like a longtime friend. This at times turns the book into an unstructured storytelling ramble. (Ironically, that was supposed to be Bernays’ style to talk about himself, so maybe there is more to it.) Another irritating aspect is Larry Tye’s blurry style and a highly repetitive vocabulary which makes the book less pleasant to read.However, the author also manages to view the father of spin in a critical way and casts doubt on the effectiveness of his PR campaigns and especially the grand historic dimension that Bernays liked to give his work but not necessarily always deserved.Having accumulated a surprising amount of detail about “Eddie’s” (as he likes to refer to him throughout the book) personal life, Tye succeeds in showing the person behind the spinmeister. He sheds light on the many contradictory, eccentric and egocentric aspects of his personality without diminishing his lifetime achievements.All in all, an interesting read, but to everyone who is not familiar with the work and philosophy of Edward Bernays, I would rather recommend to start with “Propaganda” or “The Engineering of Consent” written by the father of spin himself.