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Edward Bernays

Propaganda Paperback – September 1, 2004

by Edward Bernays (Author), Mark Crispin Miller (Introduction)

1,404 ratings

in Political Leadership

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“Bernays’ honest and practical manual provides much insight into some of the most powerful and influential institutions of contemporary industrial state capitalist democracies.”—Noam Chomsky

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”—Edward Bernays

A seminal and controversial figure in the history of political thought and public relations, Edward Bernays (1891–1995), pioneered the scientific technique of shaping and manipulating public opinion, which he famously dubbed “engineering of consent.” During World War I, he was an integral part of the U.S. Committee on Public Information (CPI), a powerful propaganda apparatus that was mobilized to package, advertise and sell the war to the American people as one that would “Make the World Safe for Democracy.” The CPI would become the blueprint in which marketing strategies for future wars would be based upon.

Bernays applied the techniques he had learned in the CPI and, incorporating some of the ideas of Walter Lipmann, as well as his uncle, Sigmund Freud, became an outspoken proponent of propaganda as a tool for democratic and corporate manipulation of the population. His 1928 bombshell Propaganda lays out his eerily prescient vision for using propaganda to regiment the collective mind in a variety of areas, including government, politics, art, science and education. To read this book today is to frightfully comprehend what our contemporary institutions of government and business have become in regards to organized manipulation of the masses.

Print length

175 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Ig Publishing
Publication date

September 1, 2004
Dimensions

5 x 0.3 x 7.7 inches
ISBN-10

9780970312594
ISBN-13

978-0970312594
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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0970312598
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ig Publishing; 1st Edition (September 1, 2004)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 175 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780970312594
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0970312594
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.3 x 7.7 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #5,997 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Political Leadership
- #7 in Advertising (Books)
- #9 in Propaganda & Political Psychology

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Alexandra Silvester

The truth is fake news, the manipulation of reality

Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2017

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'Propaganda' should be taught at schools, making a new generation aware of how we human beings have become a danger to each other. Nothing is as it seems, and the populations in the West loosing Knowledge, which is forgotten, deleted and denied. New narratives are spun, and what was initially just a smart political maneuver had entered history, replacing 'that, which is', a reality, which doesn't need to be believed because it just is. How quickly have these narratives entered our schools and universities, and they are taught, and they are believed, and we can't understand when there are people who try to challenge the illusions we call our political reality. Our time has become too dangerous as we blindly stumble into wars which are sold to us as necessary to achieve peace. So, let us look back when Mr. Freud made his first crude attempts to open our mind, so we could learn who we are... that of course didn't happen, because people saw 'opportunities', and Edward Bernays gave us the formula, by which to follow. Please, this book is a must.

61 people found this helpful

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Bernard

Not as interesting as I had hoped

Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2020

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Edward Bernays was a brilliant propagandist who wielded tremendous amounts of power over public influence. Read a little about him and you will find he has been responsible for everything from the popularization of cigarettes to the CIA coup in 1950's Guatemala. He holds a tremendous amount of knowledge and manipulative ability in regards to propaganda; unfortunately, this book is not where he shares that information.

Had this book been a strategy manual of Bernays', or a memoir of his greatest manipulations it would surely be a classic. Unfortunately this book was written mainly as a moral defense of propaganda itself. Instead of branding propaganda as a devious dark art of mass mind control, Bernays paints it as somewhat positive if not innocuous. He is intentionally withholding of information in an attempt to cast propaganda in a positive light. The end result is an experience like dipping ones foot into a puddle instead of a deep swim. Boring.

24 people found this helpful

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Evgeni Stavinov

The book made me think deeper about every purchase decision, social interaction, and consumed news

Reviewed in the United States on November 27, 2020

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The book prompted me to think deeper about every purchase decision, social interaction, and consumed news.
I’ve read my fair share of sales and marketing books, and well familiar with the concept of purchasing decision based in emotions, impulses, habits, and group think. I’m also familiar with various cognitive biases, such as confirmation bias, selection bias, and illusion of control. So the book didn’t change my world, but rather confirmed and systematized what I already knew. The book provided theoretical underpinning of propaganda: how it came about in a complex and constantly evolving society a century ago, and where it evolved to by now. How propaganda methods started being used in political campaigns, continued into routine way of doing business in large corporations (aka public relationship), and permeated every sales & marketing strategy, and social media by now.
The book starts with the phrase: “The conscious and organized manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society”. So there is nothing wrong with propaganda per se. It’s just a way to manage complex society by applying well-hidden selective filtering, and a means to organize chaos.
Writing this review at the end of tumultuous 2020, the COVID19 year, it's interesting to reflect on the events on the society thru the lens of propaganda. What is objective information, and what are hidden influences, manipulations, half-truths, or plain lies. Well, time will tell. And this book is going to be helpful as well.

18 people found this helpful

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Kirk T.

A must-read for the 21st century. We're all programmed, let's just be aware of it.

Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2020

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This is a great book and a must-read. I was amazed at how timeless this book is...it could have been written a year ago versus a hundred years ago - if you're willing to overlook a few references to companies or fashions that no longer exist.

This book shows how literally 99% of the thoughts and decisions we make are done via programming. It also attempts to remove some of the stigma from the word "propaganda" and shows how softer terms like "public relations" or "media relations" are the exact same thing. Most importantly it shows that in today's day and age, propaganda is a necessary tool...but it's one that can (and often is) used to evil ends. Being able to spot propaganda more effectively and determining what its root cause is will help you in your everyday life.

18 people found this helpful

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James D. Cook

An awful lot to say about one word

Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2019

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Propaganda seems like it is all around us and permeates our existence. It is one reason people get a bad taste in their mouth when the hear politics being discussed. Propaganda, otherwise known as Consumer Relations, as Bernays carefully lays out, is taught in our universities, and the ability to create and relay propaganda is virtually required from anyone in media or marketing.

Propaganda is absolutely integral to political messages, including laying out justifications for wars, taxes, and new laws. It is used by District Attorneys in describing cases where they do prosecute, seemingly unfairly, or do not wish to prosecute, such as cases of police violence. It is used by politicians, soldiers, and the media to defend our attacks on foreign countries and to justify the immense expense involved in maintaining our multi-level armed forces.

Believe it or not, Barneys, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, honed his expertise in the First World War creating the hatred towards Germans and slogans like, "The war to end all wars," in order to move a complacent, safe American public to move overseas and tip the scales of history. He was later employed by large corporations to change public perceptions of a wide range of products, from tobacco to cake mix.

An easy, essential high school-level read, I believe it should follow "The Autobiography of Ben Franklin" in the curriculum.

15 people found this helpful

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PJJ

Real eye opener

Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2021

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This will shine a light on American media and politics. Read it. You will be shocked. It’s frightening to see how the world manipulates the average person. Our country is in a sad place in history.

3 people found this helpful

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Alan the Kaz

A crucial insight into how society functions

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 22, 2013

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This is one of those books that I've wanted to read for years, as a primary reference to understand how the world really operates. It's great to read books and to watch documentaries which talk about these things, but you can only truly appreciate what's going on around you when you go straight to the source. And Edward Bernays, the early 20th century propagandist who used the psychological insights of his uncle, Sigmund Freud, to transform the propaganda industry into what we now call "public relations", is one of the most crucial primary sources. Interest on his life and work have been reinvigorated within recent years, due to activists such as Noam Chomsky citing him as a pivotal spearhead of the Big Brother society, and an award winning BBC documentary by Adam Curtis, `Century of the Self'.

This short book, `Propaganda', is essentially propaganda for propaganda. By the 1920s, the once neutral word "propaganda" had been tainted with the same connotations it still has until now. Bernays, a professional propagandist, tasked himself with the mission of giving acceptability back to what he considered a legitimate advertising technique. This was back before he would realise that the word would never become fashionable again, replacing it with "public relations", or P.R.(opaganda). And, so, this short book acts essentially as an advertisement for "educated Americans", to teach them of the value of propaganda. The first half of the book is basically an apology for propaganda, and the wise men behind the scenes that we have "consented" to employ it for "our own good", to sway our opinions into the right direction and to prevent chaos from ensuing as a result of having no wise guidance in our lives. The second half is more of a practical manual of how propaganda can be successfully utilised in areas of business, politics, education, and others. While I found the first half more interesting, the second half is surprisingly relevant to today's seemingly far removed world from the 1920s, when this book was written.

In many ways, Edward Bernays' `Propaganda' is not as sinister as I had expected it to be. Bernays seems convinced that propaganda is a natural and unavoidable part of life, and he makes many convincing arguments to back up this assertion (though he is a master propagandist, so it's no surprise that his outlook seems convincing). Furthermore, he continually reminds his readers of their ethical duty to tell the truth and to not mislead the people whose thoughts they wish to sway to their cause. Nor did Bernays, like the propagandists who would come after him, seem to believe that the masses are brainless idiots (or, if he did believe this to be so, he didn't even so much as allude to that opinion within these pages). Bernays, it seems, dreamed of a world in which an unseen group of benevolent wise men would guide mankind, through propaganda, into making rational choices for the good of society. However, the role of today's advertising and P.R. world, which Bernays breathed into existence, is (as Noam Chomsky explains) to hurl the masses into making irrational decisions, the complete opposite of what Bernays seemed to have stood for.

Edward Bernays' `Propaganda' offers a valuable insight into how our collective minds function, and the mentality of those who are really pulling the strings in society (the advertisers, big business leaders, as well as prominent politicians) think of us. To fully appreciate this book, read it in conjunction with some of Noam Chomsky's numerous works on media manipulation, and watch Adam Curtis's `Century of the Self'.

40 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Propagate and take root

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 1, 2016

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Judging by the title of the book and it's reviews I was expecting to read a concise instructional work on how to emit and broadcast propaganda for your own ends. The author is well received by a lot of marketing professionals and I because of it's utilitarian cover I was expecting something like a training guide but it's not, I found it a little long winded, obfusc and self indulgent, but in some was its generality works in a way that involves the whole of humanity not just people who think they want to launch a propaganda campaigns. Instead of a flatpack with easy to assemble instructions I got a packet of seeds, easy to throw away and might take a little nurturing, but no doubt it will be enjoyable to watch them grow, and now for some light relief Last Seen in Bangkok

4 people found this helpful

Kelvin Beukes

The title says it all...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 16, 2014

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This book, despite being a slim volume, is THE text on marketing techniques, written by the grand-master of the field. From making smoking socially acceptable and an 'image' (See Marlborough Man etc.) to selling Bacon (formerly a nearly unsellable stew dish the US meat industry had a problem with) as a breakfast mainstay, Bernays took all that he had discerned; acquired and formulated it all in to a Stratagem which is either quoted or simply Plagiarised with spangly bits on top.

Though structured as part historical dialogue, leading into discourse of situation - solution, Bernays never leaves sight of the amalgamation of social sciences; psychology/psychiatry and geo-political nuances and ideologies; mythologies all tightly combined into an easy to read treatise on 'Deliver the goods and more'.

It is little wonder why this work resides on nearly every book shelf of the global elite.

6 people found this helpful

Ross Pollard

One of the most important books about political communication, manipulation and modern marketing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 22, 2018

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Edward Bernays wasn't a particularity nice man. He was a master manipulator who held negative views about human nature and behaviour. But through his cleverness he managed to get women in America to smoke on mass and suffer the health consequences as a result, killing people in the process.

Nevertheless, I respect the fact that he wrote a book being so honest. It is great insight into the mind of the negative man and the dodgy beginnings of the professions of public relations, modern marketing and political propaganda.

Anyone who is interested in how modern marketing started should read this highly readable book.

4 people found this helpful

Chris R

Good starting point for spotting propaganda masquerading as information

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 11, 2014

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I first came across Edward Bernays in Adam Curtis's documentary "The Century of the Self". This book opened my eyes a little more to how it is possible for leaders to manipulate us. It's very readable, and a good starting point. If you want to investigate further, it's worth looking at "Public Opinion" by Walter Lippmann (which I found a hard read, but it was worth sticking with) and perhaps "Propaganda" by Jacques Ellul (even more difficult, and still only part-read).

These books certainly make you question your assumptions about the way that western societies are run. Having been extremely naive a few years back, now when I listen to the news I often find myself wondering, "why am I being told this?"

5 people found this helpful

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