Propaganda by Edward L. Bernays (Heathen Edition)

Propaganda

Spine #55
Author
Edward L. Bernays
Translator
First Edition
1928
Heathen Edition
2024
Refreshed
Pages
120
Heathen Genera
Arriving Soon-ish, Propaganda
Paperback ISBN
978-1-948316-55-2
Hardcover ISBN
978-1-963228-55-7
Modern propaganda is a consistent, enduring effort to create or shape events to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise, idea, or group. This practice of creating circumstances and of creating pictures in the minds of millions of persons is very common. Virtually no important undertaking is now carried on without it, whether that enterprise be building a cathedral, endowing a university, marketing a moving picture, floating a large bond issue, or electing a president. Sometimes the effect on the public is created by a professional propagandist, sometimes by an amateur deputed for the job. The important thing is that it is universal and continuous; and in its sum total it is regimenting the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments the bodies of its soldiers.

Edward Louis Bernays (1891−1995), the recognized father of public relations and nephew of Sigmund Freud, was a pioneer American publicist in the field of propaganda (describing it as a necessary component of democratic government) and generally considered to have been the first to develop the idea of the professional public relations counselor. He worked for dozens of government agencies, politicians, nonprofits, and major American corporations, with his best-known work being a 1929 campaign to promote female smoking by branding cigarettes as feminist “Torches of Freedom.” His book Propaganda explores the psychology behind manipulating the masses (describing them as irrational and subject to herd instinct) and the ability to use symbolic action and propaganda to influence politics, effect social change, and lobby for gender and racial equality, before outlining how skilled practitioners can use crowd psychology and psychoanalysis to control the masses in desired ways.

"Read Propaganda and find out."
The Brooklyn Daily Times