Review by Choice Review
Greenberg (Rutgers Univ.) has provided a timely, lively account of the modern presidency, from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama, with a focus on how presidents use instruments and techniques of mass communication. A history of spin is close to being a history of everything that is important about presidents and their administrations. Along the way, Greenberg introduces a large and fascinating cast of characters: newspaper, radio, and television reporters; public relations and advertising executives; pollsters, speechwriters, press secretaries, and political strategists. Careful students of the presidency and of American politics have long understood the importance of these people to the functioning of an effective White House. At the same time, a small army of critics has blamed those same individuals for contributing to a superficial and artificial political culture that often undermines the honesty and effectiveness of elected leaders. Greenberg has evidence for both sets of conclusions and delivers a balanced assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the perennial presidential attempts to serve and shape public sentiments and opinions. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels. --Robert A. Strong, Washington & Lee University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Suspicious of political spin, the intentional effort to shape the public's impression of candidates and policies? Worries about what was formerly euphemized as publicity, public relations, and communications are nothing new, as this fascinating history of presidential spin reveals. Starting with William McKinley, Greenberg parallels the techniques devised by spin doctors with intellectuals' critiques of their methods. Pivoting on a key question Does spin work? Greenberg describes the variable fortunes of presidents since McKinley to produce favorable news. Theodore Roosevelt set an example of how a president could influence public opinion, while Wilson illustrated spin's limits when he failed to build popular support for the League of Nations. As he recounts each president's adoption of an innovation, such as Coolidge and radio, FDR and pollsters, Eisenhower and television, Greenberg wryly notes that critics' fears of a public manipulated and deceived have not consistently been realized. Presidents up to Barack Obama, Greenberg avers, have learned that public opinion is harder to mold than than image makers, wordsmiths, and focus-group maestros think. Balanced, interesting, and timely for the 2016 campaign, Greenberg's work will entice any reader following media and politics.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this underwhelming history of the modern presidency, Rutgers historian Greenberg (Nixon's Shadow) examines the position through the lens of news management and image making. Starting his tale around 1900 with Teddy Roosevelt and ending with the Obama administration, Greenberg provides plenty of gritty details-based on deep and extensive knowledge-to back up his assertion that "just as rhetoric was an inherent part of ancient politics, spin is a permanent part of ours." Remarkably un cynical, Greenberg takes the manipulation of language and news to be a necessary feature of presidential governance, even when, as he believes, it distorts the political process and "leaves an unpleasant aftertaste." Unfortunately, like too many historians of modern America, he seems to think everything started at the dawn of the 20th century. An uninformed reader might come away believing that the Declaration of Independence didn't address a "candid world," Jefferson's party didn't put journalists and editors on its payroll, and Lincoln didn't understand the reach of words. More importantly, Greenberg never clarifies for readers how political spin differs from, say, corporate public relations, and seems satisfied with stories about a single political office when there's much more to say about the effect of spin on everything. Deeper analysis, improved context, and less narrative would help. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Greenberg (history, political science, Rutgers Univ.; Nixon's Shadow) has written an extensive, insightful account of the image-making machinery entailed in the modern American presidency. The author's work is a sobering one that in part takes readers on a journey, at times appearing as a downward spiral, from the Greek's reliance on rhetoric to the U.S. culture of apparent fascination with and acceptance of the modern spin machine and the proverbial selling of presidents and presidential candidates like a bar of soap. From Theodore Roosevelt's "bully pulpit" to Barack Obama's triumph with Twitter and videographers, Greenberg's study offers a front-row seat (one that's not for the faint of heart) in the theater known as American politics. This work is similar to Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, in which the line between fact and fiction is blurred, and the White House's West Wing becomes The West Wing. We now have, and have had for some time, according to Greenberg, the image-is-everything presidency. Spin, he argues, is here to stay; it is neither our savior nor a sinister force eating away at our democratic soul. VERDICT This revealing account of politics as image in U.S. presidential culture should be read by any student of the American presidency and American politics.-Stephen Kent Shaw, -Northwest Nazarene Coll., Nampa, ID © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
From William McKinley to Barack Obama, a prizewinning historian looks at the tortured marriage of public relations and the modern presidency. Woodrow Wilson loathed all the " campaign mummery' of shaking hands and sweet-talking supporters." Adlai Stevenson called merchandising candidates for high office "the ultimate indignity to the democratic process." Both can blame Theodore Roosevelt for transforming the presidency and for recognizing the power of "the bully pulpit" to shape and mobilize public opinion. Since Roosevelt, all aspirants to and occupants of the Oval Office have taken elaborate pains to construct and nourish their public images, carefully crafting their own versions of events and presenting them to voters as "truth-telling" or "transparency." Opponents reliably label their efforts as mere publicity, advertising, ballyhoo, news management, propaganda, or, in today's fashionable locution, "spin." Greenberg (History/Rutgers Univ.; Calvin Coolidge, 2006, etc.) cruises chronologically through more than 100 years of spin, packing his narrative with minibios and sharp commentary on the journalists, pundits, and intellectuals who've closely observed the spin machine through the years. He chronicles the succession of speechwriters, press secretaries, pollsters, admen, consultants, TV gurus, and campaign managers, each of whom gave the machine a distinctive whirl. And, of course, he assesses the presidents, gold-standard spinners like FDR, JFK, and Reagan, chief executives who were surprisingly good at itCoolidge, Trumansome who were surprisingly badHarding, Wilsonand some, like Hoover, Johnson, and Carter, whose presidencies began well and then spun out of control. As Greenberg chronicles the evolution of spin, noting the technological innovations that have caused the machine to revolve ever faster, piling up colorful, informative stories about the notable spinmasters, charting the dizzying effect of the constant campaign and the supercharged executive on the voters, readers will wonder whether to cry at the implications for our republic or to simply laugh at the spectacle of it all. At once scholarly, imaginative, and great fun. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
