Customer Reviews

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

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Admittedly, I expected a lot from this book. I had just learned about Bernays from Stuart Ewen's book Spin: A Social History of PR & was looking forward to getting a balanced picture of this alleged master. Tye's book did not fit the bill and, unfortunately, most of Bernay's books seem to be out of print. My main problem with the book is that Tye does not document the connection between Bernay's schemes & their outcomes - were Bernay's efforts smoke & mirrors that simply presaged natural turns in public opinion or did they actually manage to influence public opinion? This is the main question that I wanted the book to address, and it simply did not do it. Furthermore, the book is structured non-chronologically, and Tye does not have the skill as an author to bring Bernay's life together coherently in this manner; at best the structure is a good idea poorly executed. Check out Ewen's book for a more cogent history of public relations (including Bernay's innovations).

You've seen Wag the Dog and Primary Colors, you've watched politicians talk out of both sides of their mouths, you've seen the President get into trouble only to have the spin doctors bail him out. Ever wonder where it all started? This book is what you new to read to find out.

Larry Tye gives you the reader an in depth look at Edward Bernay's and the birth of public relation or the beginnings of spin. From Bernay's start in the 1920's to his revolutionary ideas of parading women down the streets of New York to promote smoking you'll get a fist hand look at how spin works.

Read through the 260 plus pages and see why we use spin, how public relations can and does affect public opinion. Watch and learn from the father or master of the public relations. Larry Tye has a well researched and extremely detail account of the beginnings.

Fascinated and educated are the two words to describe what I walked away from this book with. Fascination about Bernay's ability to make things come out his way and sway the public to follow, educated has to how spin control works in today's culture. A great read for all!

Bernays is generally acknowledged as the Father of PR. But, is he also the Father of Spin?

Tye writes a fascinating biography of this key communications individual, filled with the key episodes that earned Bernays his moniker. From getting women to smoke to getting people to eat bacon, Bernays always seemed to figure out a way.

But, Tye focuses heavily on these episodes and gives short shift to the implictions and consequences of Bernays's actions beyond fattening the bottom line. While it is true Bernays could not have fully appreciated all the consequences, his relentless drive to serve his clients reveals a man who forgot that public relations means being the conduit between the public and the client, not being another salesman, no matter how clever.

If you're interested in seeing the modern fruition of Bernays's tactics, then I suggest Michael Levine's Guerilla PR: Wired, which updates Bernays's ideas into the digital age.

Overall, this book is well-worth reading if you're interested in a man's actions. But, if you're interested in seeing how a man's actions can affect the world, then you might be better off with another book.

The book is entertaining in parts and provides interesting information to someone who has no prior knowledge on Bernays. But considering the impact Bernay's ideas & work made on PR and spin and consequently the American way of life, I found the writing style to be rather flippant; and the book, as a whole, skimpy. From the research material available and the interviews which he had conducted, Tye could have written a more substantial if not a scholarly piece, irrespective of his sentiments for Bernays the person. Perhaps, that was not his intention. However, Tye did make a bold claim with his title, and I naturally expected more from his book.

You can't possibly understand the history of the 20th century without coming to grips with Edward Bernays. Bernays bragged in his autobiography that Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels valued his book "Crystalizing Public Opinion" above all others in his library. Bernays, a relative of Sigmund Freud, applied his formidable intellect to corporate-sponsored tasks such as convincing women to smoke and demonizing movements for land reform in the Third World. Sadly, this thoroughly amoral individual's outlook on life - bend the truth for the highest bidder regardless of who is harmed - has become the norm, not the exception, among "communications" professionals who apply their craft with a charm and polish that belies the often deadly consequences of their "campaigns."

Tye's book is a must-read for any self-respecting PR wizard. How Bernays was able to engineer PR strategies for such diverse products as books and bananas, from Mack trucks to Lucky Strikes and even foreign countries, is ingenious and artful. His creativity hath no bounds. He elevated the practice to a social science, and build roads for the profession. He drafted a historical argument, outlining 5 stages of PR history in America, the last stage being the most interesting to me. This was the "Period of Mutual Understanding," quote: "a time when PR came to mean 'not a one-way street for giving information to the public for our clients but rather one of interpreting the public to the client as a basis for their action and, after the action had been carried out, interpreting the client to the public.'" If only all of us could be so articulate with our clients! Entertaining accounts on how he performed the craft (i.e., selling books by selling builders on the inclusion of book shelves in new homes)and his allegiance to "Big Think," were my favorate parts and I could not hear enough about them. The book explores the complex, contradictory nature he possessed and a surprise revelation in the end (and at the end of Bernay's life), will have you spellbound in disbelief.

Tye is accused of not offering a definitive judgment of Bernays because he offers too much "one the one hand" and "other hand" descriptions. Others feel the story should have been more chronological. I think these criticisms reflect the readers' problems rather than Tye's. I am interested in coming to my own conclusions, and Tye's descriptions and topical arrangements help me do that. I do not want to merely swallow a biographer's perspective without also considering other material about the person and the topic in general -- books such as Ewen's and other material. This is a fascinating story told well and offers a useful focus on one aspect of a much larger issue, which is how we are constructed as consumers and voters in late 20th century America.

As a non-PR person, I thoroughly enjoyed The Father of Spin because it confirmed my suspicion that a large part of our history was and today still is "manufactured" out of the offices of spin. Larry Tye's portrayal of Bernays seems very balanced. However, having read the contents of the book I am inclined to say that the credit given to Bernays is somewhat over-rated by naming him the Father of Spin. One question needs to be raised: Is the information and news we see everyday inspired by commerce or actual events?

I stuck with this book hoping that its entertaining portions would yield to something carefully crafted and insightful. Instead, I finished the book somewhat entertained, but hankering for more substance.

What EXACTLY did Bernays accomplish? What REALLY is his legacy? What drove the man? Tye offers no detailed answers, just anecdotes and weak analysis. Indeed, Tye regularly confuses detail for substance, telling readers about the various office addresses Bernays retained, but not getting to the nub of Bernays' relationship with Freud.

Tye presents neither a thorough chronology of Bernays' career nor a thoughtful review of this enigmatic man's persona and pysche. In the process, he relies much too heavily (for my liking) on family testimony (I, for one, couldn't care less what Bernays' grandkids thought of their grandfather).

As a former PR flack, I appreciated the facts surrounding some of Bernays'campaigns. But as a reader, I was frustrated that Father of Spin never really took me anywhere new, leaving me ambivalent about Bernays and his legacy and unconvinced that the book's title is appropriate in the least.

Larry Tye takes on a subject that few journalists would regard of savory: the biography of a PR man. One might dismiss PR people as not meriting attention or even toleration. But Tye walks a fine line here because the life of Eddie Bernays has some tension and complexity, and the book makes that clear. He is a worthwhile character study, not just for people in the communications industry, but also those in business more generally, politics, or interested in consumer and opinion issues. As Freud's nephew, Bernays carried around more heritage than most, and how he shoulders that burden creates interest. Bernays also placed himself at the forefront of an industry's development, and that creates another set of issues. The book is fraught with the same conflict that many deal with in communications: are they adding egocentric bias to information, or warping it for vested powers? Lastly, Bernays had a role in helping leaders develop their visibility, but does he stand as a peer at their shoulders? Tye does a great job at making us reflect on these issues in this highly readable book.