Public Relations

by Edward L. Bernays

Written by publicist number one, Edward L. Bernays makes clear in this book that public relations is not publicity, press agentry, promotion, advertising, or a bag of tricks, but a continuing process of social integration. It is the field of adjusting private and public interest. This book is important to all of us because it tells us how to adjust ourselves to our publics by presenting a thorough analysis of public relations, its origin and development, its aims and responsibilities, and fixes its place in the modern world. Everyone engaged in any activity, and every student of man and society, will find in this book a challenge and opportunity to further both the public interest and his own interest.

Genres: Psychology, Politics, Business, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Sociology, History

374 pages, Hardcover

First published December 12, 1952

About the author

Edward L. Bernays was an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations".

Reviews

[Aiden Pilling]

A fantastic core reader for those interested in Public Relations, Communications, Marketing, Social Psychology, Sociology and Advertisement.

Edward Bernays - the Nephew of renowned Psychologist Sigmund Freud and pioneer of PR and Propaganda - writes with honesty in this somewhat disturbing book, featuring ideas and practices that some might consider manipulative, dark and nihilistic. Bernays does an excellent job of providing context throughout, with clear and concise examples of his theory put into practice.

A book to make you reflect on the advertisement industry of the Western world, for sure.

Ofcourse, readers should take note that this book is somewhat outdated when considering the modes of communication used in the 21st Century. Nonetheless, this is a fanastic starting place for those interested in the aforementioned subjects.

[Unojoe2]

So far, Very information dense but in a readable flow.

[Evelyn and Roberto Carrasquillo]

Excellent Insight on Public Relations

This book a great introduction and overview on the field of public relations. This book was recommended by a friend and I really appreciate the recommendation.

[Elvis]

After reading Crystallizing Public Opinion by Edward Bernays, which I enjoyed, I decided to go deeper into Edwards mind and read this book which was published approx. 20 years later. To my surprise Bernays did not go further into concepts of persuasion, "engineering of consent" and "social engineering". He named those concepts, but that was just it. He said that Sigmund Freud was his Uncle, but that was just it. Instead of analysis of the concepts and insights into human mind and our social entity, he provided us, the readers, with useless dates, statistics and numbers for the whole book. Sure there were some good quotes and some good parts where he explained the thinking behind his methods, but unfortunately that was for only few pages.

340 Pages of waste of time. Read Crystallizing Public Opinion instead.

[Juan Viale Rigo]

Este libro es oro sólido.