December 12–19, 1996

book quarterly|non-fiction

PR! A Social History of Spin

By Stuart Ewen, Basic Books, $30

"News is an event that juts out of the pattern of the routine." This statement, the prime idea behind the notion of "spin," was made by public relations visionary Edward Bernays — the legendary near-idol of the author. But it could have been said by the author himself. The "absolute" of who said what and when is malleable. And that's the point of this book: mutation and its purchase.

Stuart Ewen's look at how old bullshit creates new living truths is an almost abstract portrait of public relations, ranging from turn-of-the-century master theoreticians to present-day well-paid practitioners. At times, the book and Ewen's tone are as frightening as Oliver Stone's JFK.

It seems such a simple subject matter, truth. But via its "engineers of consent,""compliance professionals" and "experience shapers," truth becomes a shifting commodity, owned by those who pay the proper price or the proper piper. Whether he's looking at Bernays' smug writings from the '20s, the public-mindedness of John Dewey or the skewered semantics of Walter Lippmann, Ewen paints his subjects as thoughtful, then thoughtless mad geniuses using the public as guinea pigs for their own ultimate gain. With a zillion campaigns detailed and mounted as strategically and dangerously as any war battle, the history of PR is indeed an "unseen biography of America."

Ewen, the author of Channels of Desire and All-Consuming Images (on which Bill Moyers based his PBS series The Public Mind), reveals how the histories of public relations, society and politics mesh. Big private companies like General Electric, public trusts like AT&T, charities like the American Way — to Ewen they are all playing liar's poker. Some are just better bluffers, as they seek and find public sentiment, brand identification and unyielding devotion like a wild boar foraging for scraps.

The book's most telling moment lies at the beginning, when Bernays — a direct descendant of Sigmund Freud — says he simply cannot understand the rising of a "new society" of people who do not wholeheartedly believe in the class system and its ways and means. Bernays did not say this in 1953 or 1966, but in 1990 (Ewen interviewed him just before his 100th birthday). And that's even scarier.

If your idea of a Christmas book is more Marshall McCluhan than Dickens, then PR! is your holiday read.

— a.d. amorosi