This lengthy history of spin and public relations tends to get stuck in some very narrow grooves. One of the Industrial Revolution's many machine-inflected ideas, public relations was an attempt to apply the principles of engineering and mechanics to popular opinion. While Edward Bernays, one of PR's great founding fathers, and other practitioners understood the practical limitations to their craft, they felt they were developing a real science: ``We can effect some changes in public opinion with a fair degree of accuracy by operating a certain mechanism, just as the motorist can manipulate the speed of his car by manipulating the flow of gasoline.'' The Industrial Revolution had created a vast newspaper-reading public and, thus, the ability to widely disseminate information and ideas. The power of the medium was brought home to big business at the turn of the century when the muckrakers began their extraordinarily successful series of attacks against monopolies. An effective counter was needed, and so public relations was born. Ewen (Communications/Hunter Coll.; All Consuming Images, 1988, etc.) does an able job of chronicling the evolution of this slippery trade. Drawing on seldom-seen corporate archives from such giants as AT&T and Standard Oil, he paints an alarming picture of corporate America eagerly trying to mold our perceptions to serve their purposes. Ewen believes these subtle manipulations are a terrible threat to democracy, but he tends to overstate his case, ignoring the numerous PR disasters that show the real limits of coercion. His account is labored, narrowly focused (he sticks too closely to his sources), and too America-centered, scanting such masters of PR as Joseph Goebbels and completely ignoring PR as practiced in the rest of the world. Any overview of such an important and surreptitious subject is welcome, even when it is so prosaically presented, but this is a far cry from a definitive history. (b&w illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Dec. 4, 1996
ISBN: 0-465-06168-0
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1996
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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