Rating: 
Summary: I'm still hungry
Review: I stuck with this book hoping that its entertaining portions would yield to something carefully crafted and insightful. Instead, I finished the book somewhat entertained, but hankering for more substance.What EXACTLY did Bernays accomplish? What REALLY is his legacy? What drove the man? Tye offers no detailed answers, just anecdotes and weak analysis. Indeed, Tye regularly confuses detail for substance, telling readers about the various office addresses Bernays retained, but not getting to the nub of Bernays' relationship with Freud. Tye presents neither a thorough chronology of Bernays' career nor a thoughtful review of this enigmatic man's persona and pysche. In the process, he relies much too heavily (for my liking) on family testimony (I, for one, couldn't care less what Bernays' grandkids thought of their grandfather). As a former PR flack, I appreciated the facts surrounding some of Bernays'campaigns. But as a reader, I was frustrated that Father of Spin never really took me anywhere new, leaving me ambivalent about Bernays and his legacy and unconvinced that the book's title is appropriate in the least.
Rating: 
Summary: okay but not great
Review: Larry Tye attempts an ambitious view of Edward Bernays but falls short. While his stories are entertaining he fails to draw a connection between his ideas and the results. Frankly, I found Michael Levine's Guerilla PR Wired to be a much better and useful read.
Rating: 
Summary: a compelling and unexpected biography
Review: Larry Tye takes on a subject that few journalists would regard of savory: the biography of a PR man. One might dismiss PR people as not meriting attention or even toleration. But Tye walks a fine line here because the life of Eddie Bernays has some tension and complexity, and the book makes that clear. He is a worthwhile character study, not just for people in the communications industry, but also those in business more generally, politics, or interested in consumer and opinion issues. As Freud's nephew, Bernays carried around more heritage than most, and how he shoulders that burden creates interest. Bernays also placed himself at the forefront of an industry's development, and that creates another set of issues. The book is fraught with the same conflict that many deal with in communications: are they adding egocentric bias to information, or warping it for vested powers? Lastly, Bernays had a role in helping leaders develop their visibility, but does he stand as a peer at their shoulders? Tye does a great job at making us reflect on these issues in this highly readable book.
Rating:
Summary: a compelling and unexpected biography
Review: Larry Tye takes on a subject that few journalists would regard of savory: the biography of a PR man. One might dismiss PR people as not meriting attention or even toleration. But Tye walks a fine line here because the life of Eddie Bernays has some tension and complexity, and the book makes that clear. He is a worthwhile character study, not just for people in the communications industry, but also those in business more generally, politics, or interested in consumer and opinion issues. As Freud's nephew, Bernays carried around more heritage than most, and how he shoulders that burden creates interest. Bernays also placed himself at the forefront of an industry's development, and that creates another set of issues. The book is fraught with the same conflict that many deal with in communications: are they adding egocentric bias to information, or warping it for vested powers? Lastly, Bernays had a role in helping leaders develop their visibility, but does he stand as a peer at their shoulders? Tye does a great job at making us reflect on these issues in this highly readable book.
Rating:
Summary: episodic but interesting
Review: Larry Tye tells the fascinating story of Eddy Bernays, one of the major figures in the development of modern Public Relations. Bernays was a nephew of Sigmund Freud and much of his business was based on appealing to peoples psychology. He made the following analogy: Public relations isn't like pool, you're not trying to put the ball into the pocket, it's like billiards, you're trying to bank the ball off of a couple rails. When tobacco companies realized that the social taboo against women smoking in public was costing them half their business they turned to Bernays. He had a parade of women march down a New York City avenue bearing their "torches of freedom" & soon the taboo was gone. When the changing pace of life started to cut into bacon consumption, folks weren't taking the time to eat breakfast, Bernays got doctors & public health groups to make public pronouncements about the importance of breakfast & soon bacon & eggs were back in force. And when Ivory soap couldn't appeal to kids, bernays started soap carving contests & soon millions of kids were carving millions of bars of ivory soap. All of these stories and gimmicks make for interesting reading, but even Tye seems to be ambivalent about their effectiveness. Was it parades or massive social forces that broke the cigarette taboo for women? Did kids actually use Ivory or just carve a bar of it & lose interest? The interesting question he raises is, what was Bernays social responsibilty for his campaigns & methods? Doesn't he bear some moral culpability for encouraging smoking, cholestorol, etc? & what of Joseph Goebbels praise for Bernays methods? What does it say that the Nazis approved of his methods? Tye asks all of these questions, but he doesn't really take a strong stand in answering them. A more important problem with the book is it's narrative structure. Each chapter basically consists of Tye's reporting on a discreet topic, so it reads like a series of stories on Bernays & Tobacco, Bernays & Freud, etc.. It makes the book pretty choppy. All in all though, Tye's story of Bernays' career casts an interesting light on many episodes and issues of the past century & it's amazing how pertinent Bernays' methods are in this Age of Spin. GRADE: B-
Rating:
Summary: episodic but interesting
Review: Larry Tye tells the fascinating story of Eddy Bernays, one of the major figures in the development of modern Public Relations. Bernays was a nephew of Sigmund Freud and much of his business was based on appealing to peoples psychology. He made the following analogy: Public relations isn't like pool, you're not trying to put the ball into the pocket, it's like billiards, you're trying to bank the ball off of a couple rails. When tobacco companies realized that the social taboo against women smoking in public was costing them half their business they turned to Bernays. He had a parade of women march down a New York City avenue bearing their "torches of freedom" & soon the taboo was gone. When the changing pace of life started to cut into bacon consumption, folks weren't taking the time to eat breakfast, Bernays got doctors & public health groups to make public pronouncements about the importance of breakfast & soon bacon & eggs were back in force. And when Ivory soap couldn't appeal to kids, bernays started soap carving contests & soon millions of kids were carving millions of bars of ivory soap. All of these stories and gimmicks make for interesting reading, but even Tye seems to be ambivalent about their effectiveness. Was it parades or massive social forces that broke the cigarette taboo for women? Did kids actually use Ivory or just carve a bar of it & lose interest? The interesting question he raises is, what was Bernays social responsibilty for his campaigns & methods? Doesn't he bear some moral culpability for encouraging smoking, cholestorol, etc? & what of Joseph Goebbels praise for Bernays methods? What does it say that the Nazis approved of his methods? Tye asks all of these questions, but he doesn't really take a strong stand in answering them. A more important problem with the book is it's narrative structure. Each chapter basically consists of Tye's reporting on a discreet topic, so it reads like a series of stories on Bernays & Tobacco, Bernays & Freud, etc.. It makes the book pretty choppy. All in all though, Tye's story of Bernays' career casts an interesting light on many episodes and issues of the past century & it's amazing how pertinent Bernays' methods are in this Age of Spin. GRADE: B-
Rating:
Summary: the father of spin:edward l bernays & the birth of PR
Review: The book is entertaining in parts and provides interesting information to someone who has no prior knowledge on Bernays. But considering the impact Bernay's ideas & work made on PR and spin and consequently the American way of life, I found the writing style to be rather flippant; and the book, as a whole, skimpy. From the research material available and the interviews which he had conducted, Tye could have written a more substantial if not a scholarly piece, irrespective of his sentiments for Bernays the person. Perhaps, that was not his intention. However, Tye did make a bold claim with his title, and I naturally expected more from his book.
Rating:
Summary: the father of spin:edward l bernays & the birth of PR
Review: The book is entertaining in parts and provides interesting information to someone who has no prior knowledge on Bernays. But considering the impact Bernay's ideas & work made on PR and spin and consequently the American way of life, I found the writing style to be rather flippant; and the book, as a whole, skimpy. From the research material available and the interviews which he had conducted, Tye could have written a more substantial if not a scholarly piece, irrespective of his sentiments for Bernays the person. Perhaps, that was not his intention. However, Tye did make a bold claim with his title, and I naturally expected more from his book.
Rating:
Summary: 50% term paper, 50% analysis--at best
Review: This book does a disservice to its subject in its failure to communicate the big picture of Edward Bernay's life and work. There's too much focus on fragments, and not enough analysis or overview, to give a true perspective on the "father of spin." A dissapointment.
Rating: 
Summary: Thinking vs. swallowing
Review: Tye is accused of not offering a definitive judgment of Bernays because he offers too much "one the one hand" and "other hand" descriptions. Others feel the story should have been more chronological. I think these criticisms reflect the readers' problems rather than Tye's. I am interested in coming to my own conclusions, and Tye's descriptions and topical arrangements help me do that. I do not want to merely swallow a biographer's perspective without also considering other material about the person and the topic in general -- books such as Ewen's and other material. This is a fascinating story told well and offers a useful focus on one aspect of a much larger issue, which is how we are constructed as consumers and voters in late 20th century America.
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