Four stars for content--no stars for editing (or lack thereof). That said, on to content.
Ed Bernays is possibly the most influential person of the 20th Century, but hardly anyone has ever heard of him. He was the genius who invented most of the techniques used in public relations, marketing, and political campaigns, and his impacts -- through the use of those techniques -- have been incalculable in sociology, in politics, in economics, you name it. There is no area of modern human existence that has not been shaped--or distorted--by spin.
In 1933 a journalist named Karl vonWiegand interviewed Dr. Goebbels, Hitler's infamous propaganda minister. Goebbels told vonWiegand how important this book, "Crystallizing Public Opinion," had been in shaping his, Goebbels', career. VonWiegand told Bernays, who was Jewish, about this. He was not surprised. His attitude was that--just as in science--once techniques that work are out there in public view, there is no way to control who will use them and to what ends.
If you want to understand how you and everyone else is manipulated by almost everybody with a PR budget, read this book (and try to ignore all the typos).
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