Republic of Spin ─ An Inside History of the American Presidency

The Greeks called it “rhetoric,” Gilded Age politicians called it “publicity,” and some today might call it “lying,” but spin is a built-in feature of American democracy. Presidents deploy it to engage, persuade, and mobilize the people—in whom power ultimately resides.Presidential historian David Greenberg recounts the development of the White House spin machine from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama. His sweeping narrative introduces us to the visionary advisers who taught politicians to manage the press, gauge public opinion, and master the successive new media of radio, television, and the Internet. We see Wilson pioneering the press conference, FDR scheming with his private pollsters, Reagan’s aides hatching sound bites, and George W. Bush staging his extravagant photo-ops. We also see the past century’s most provocative political critics, from H. L. Mencken to Stephen Colbert, grappling with the ambiguous role of spin in a democracy—its capacity for misleading but also for leading.