Courtier to the Crowd is the first full-length biography of the public relations pioneer Ivy Ledbetter Lee. This book traces the story of Lee through his early training in the family of a Methodist minister and in schools, in the newspaper office, as a fledgling publicist, and then as a pioneer public relations counsel for some of the greatest corporations in the world. Ivy Lee was born at a crucial moment in history. In the last half of the nineteenth century, the industrial revolution brought exploitative capitalism to a crisis. Unbridled competition was suffocating business from the inside, while public clamor for more control was stifling it from the outside. Lee understood that organization and cooperation were indispensable for success in the new order. And he realized that public acceptance was necessary in a democratic society. To win acceptance, the public had to be fully informed, but it also had to be fully understood. Lee¿s own success in persuading corporate adoption of these new methods of dealing with the business public made him one of the most influential and controversial men of his time. The use of these techniques eventually became known as the practice of public relations. Lee helped bring professional status to those who devoted their time to this kind of activity, and those who have followed in his footsteps regard him as a founder of ¿modern public relations.¿Lee often said he didn¿t know how to describe his work, perhaps because there was as yet no glossary for what he did. Looking back, says author Ray Hiebert, Ivy Lee was practicing social responsibility, conflict resolution, and with his international interests, public diplomacy long before those terms were conceived. These pages are a stimulating combination of history, biography, economics, theology, and journalism. The book should have a place on the shelf of every person who practices in the fields of public relations or journalism, and readily available as a source of information and guidance for corporate executives, businessmen, clergymen, politicians, lawyers, newsmen, and editors.

A stunning investigation and indictment of a segment of the United States' foreign lobbying industry, and the threat to end democracy. For years, one group of Americans has worked as foot-soldiers for the most authoritarian regimes around the planet. In the process, they've not only entrenched dictatorships and spread kleptocratic networks, but they've secretly guided U.S. policy without the rest of America even being aware. And now, some of them have begun turning their sights on American democracy itself. These Americans are known as foreign lobbyists, and many of them spent years ushering dictatorships directly into the halls of Washington, all while laundering the reputations of the most heinous, repressive regimes in the process. These foreign lobbyists include figures like Ivy Lee, the inventor of the public relations industry—a man who whitewashed Mussolini, opened doors to the Soviets, and advised the Nazis on how to sway American audiences. They include people like Paul Manafort, who invented lobbying as we know it—and who then took his talents to autocrats from Ukraine to the Philippines, and then back to the White House. And they now include an increasing number of Americans elsewhere: in law firms and consultancies, among PR specialists and former lawmakers, and even within think tanks and universities. In Foreign Agents, Casey Michel shines a light on these foreign lobbyists as some of them—after decades of installing dictators and corrupting American policy—embark on their next mission: to end America’s democratic experiment, once and for all.

A look at how public relations has dominated public understanding of the natural environment for over one hundred years. In A Strategic Nature, Melissa Aronczyk and Maria I. Espinoza examine public relations as a social and political force that shapes both our understanding of the environmental crises we now face and our responses to them. Drawing on in-depth interviews, ethnography, and archival research, Aronczyk and Espinoza document the evolution of PR techniques to control public perception of the environment since the beginning of the twentieth century. More than spin or misinformation, PR affects how institutions and individuals conceptualize environmental problems -- from conservation to coal mining to carbon credits. Revealing the linkages of professional strategists, information politics, and environmental standards, A Strategic Nature shows how public relations restricts alternative paths to a sustainable climate future.

National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist From the acclaimed, award-winning author of Alexander Hamilton: here is the essential, endlessly engrossing biography of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.—the Jekyll-and-Hyde of American capitalism. In the course of his nearly 98 years, Rockefeller was known as both a rapacious robber baron, whose Standard Oil Company rode roughshod over an industry, and a philanthropist who donated money lavishly to universities and medical centers. He was the terror of his competitors, the bogeyman of reformers, the delight of caricaturists—and an utter enigma. Drawing on unprecedented access to Rockefeller’s private papers, Chernow reconstructs his subjects’ troubled origins (his father was a swindler and a bigamist) and his single-minded pursuit of wealth. But he also uncovers the profound religiosity that drove him “to give all I could”; his devotion to his father; and the wry sense of humor that made him the country’s most colorful codger. Titan is a magnificent biography—balanced, revelatory, elegantly written.

This book, newly discovered from the archives of his biographer, is Ivy Lee¿s only known full-length manuscript. Written in the mid-1920s, a time when the public relations field was first coming into its own, it is a guide not as much for the practitioner, but wisely, for a Jazz-Age public facing its first-ever bout of ¿information overload.¿ Lee advises the reader how to identify and cope with the seemingly relentless flow of messages¿emanating from radio, newsreels and other new media¿in order to separate out truth from reality, news from propaganda. He coaches the reader how to be a smart consumer of media, and shield himself from the newly emerging influence of motivational research and consumer crowd behavior. Although the book was written just as ¿talkies¿ were consuming the screen, the guidance it offers is just as valuable, perhaps even moreso, as YouTube and Twitter consume our screens, 90 years later.Readers of Mr. Lee¿s Publicity Book: A Citizen¿s Guide to Public Relations will also enjoy fascinating observations from some of today¿s pre-eminent scholars and historians of media and public relations. Their comments point to fascinating parallels between Lee¿s day and today, and also explore the progress, or lack thereof, in the public¿s comprehension of publicity¿s impact today.