Reviews
“Republic of Spin is an excellent examination of presidential communication and opinion management. [Greenberg] provides not only insight into the evolution of spin but also a much deeper look into the men behind the curtains who helped to direct the development of spin. … an excellent study of how changes to technology—particularly communication—directly affect presidential politics and policy.”
“A imaginative and compelling historical work. … Greenberg succeeds because he connects his arguments with descriptive writing and crisp editing, accompanied by an impressive array of secondary sources and primary documents from a hefty collection of archival material. His attention to detail brings notable authenticity, and the book’s excellent prose will hold readers’ interest.”
“Greenberg 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. … Highly recommended.”
“[There are] many fascinating revelations [in] this smoothly written book … a series of epiphanies. Republic of Spin is alternately fascinating, horrifying, and thought provoking.”
“There are so, so many things that we think of as normal today that are relatively recent inventions, and my knowledge of who started what and when was dramatically improved by Greenberg’s book.”
“Greenberg is a terrific storyteller, with a ginger touch and a falcon eye for the brilliant detail, which makes his book an education and an engrossing read. Republic of Spin is surely the definitive book on a definitively American subject: the making and manipulation of public opinion.”
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“Republic of Spin by Rutgers historian David Greenberg, is a careful chronicle of ‘the acute awareness of political manipulation that has developed over the last century.’ It runs from the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt to that of Barack Obama, documenting all the ways in which the publicity wing of the executive branch has attempted to shape public opinion.”
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“We’ve long needed an account of how Washington became Mad Men on the Potomac. A very good start is Republic of Spin by historian David Greenberg.”
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“Greenberg’s book traces the rise of the ‘public presidency’ under Theodore Roosevelt and follows it across every subsequent administration. … [A] rich, comprehensive study of political persuasion and propaganda.”
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“The spinners have always been with us, but never so much as in the full sweep of the 20th century, when, as the Rutgers historian David Greenberg tells us, the spin was the thing. A reader might approach a book with a title like ‘Republic of Spin’ with trepidation, but Mr. Greenberg has produced a beguiling admixture of cynicism and idealism.”
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“David Greenberg’s sound, judicious and dispassionate volume, which draws on primary sources as well as the existing academic literature, shows, from the standpoint of history, why being skeptical about how presidents try to sell themselves is, mainly, a good thing.”
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“Greenberg is a fluid, authoritative writer. … In Republic of Spin, [he] offers a … panoramic view, examining a century of White House news management and image-making and the broader history of political spin.”
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“The success of the spin didn’t prevent Americans from realizing they were being spun, and Greenberg devotes another theme of his story to critiques of the whole business. From H.L. Mencken to Hannah Arendt and Garry Trudeau, nearly everyone who has commented on modern politics, modern communications or simply modern life has weighed in on the struggle to shape the terms of debate of democracy.”
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“[A] fascinating history of presidential spin … Greenberg parallels the techniques devised by spin doctors with intellectuals’ critiques of their methods. … Balanced, interesting, and timely for the 2016 campaign, Greenberg’s work will entice any reader following media and politics.”
“Greenberg has written an insightful, extensive account of the image-making entailed in the modern American presidency. …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.”
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“From William McKinley to Barack Obama, a prizewinning historian looks at the tortured marriage of public relations and the modern presidency. …At once scholarly, imaginative, and great fun.”
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News
“We don’t expect our politicians to present the facts in a neutral, disinterested manner. We expect them to make their case for a particular position.”
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“The Goldsmith Book Prize for best trade book will be awarded to David Greenberg for Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency”
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“Greenberg offers a narrative history of politicians and the architects of their personas — including speechwriters, public relations advisers and other image crafters — and the American public’s distaste for the political spin machine.”
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“Trump harnessed his unfiltered, shoot-from-the-hip style to a message that was also about change and shaking up Washington”
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“Rutgers Professor Receives Prestigious Literary Award”
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“How Obama Manipulates the News”
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“With Nixon, spin pervades White House operations. Even when Watergate happened, his immediate response was to think of it as a public relations problem. He couldn’t see it as a scandal, a moral or ethical error.”
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“Woodrow Wilson created the first wartime propaganda agency, Calvin Coolidge staged photo-ops, Herbert Hoover produced an elaborate campaign film, Dwight Eisenhower employed a White House TV coach — every president for the past century has used sophisticated forms of spin.”
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“No one ever asked of a Steichen photograph, ‘Is it true or false?’”
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“Post-primary spin works only when there’s a sizable kernel of truth underneath the rhetorical froth.”
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“At a certain point that spontaneity becomes a shtick”
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“He used public opinion, the press, leaks to Congress, and Upton Sinclair to reform unconscionable industries, like the meatpackers.”
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“The ‘authentic’ politician is a myth, created by experts who traffic in the art of spin.”
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“Though little remembered today, Emil Hurja was the first man to poll for an American president.”
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“Spin has an impish quality; it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Spin winks at its own truth stretching.”
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“The story of modern American politics isn’t a steady decline from authenticity to artifice. Rather, it is a story of the refinement of tools and techniques that presidents—pretty much all of them—have cannily exploited from the moment they became available.”
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“Even in his first year, then, the man who had rocketed to power on the strength of his communication skills heard the peculiar criticism that he was a poor communicator.”
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