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Title: Simplistic history, lacks breadth, left-wing, only a start
Review: Although a good review of the PR industry, Stewart Ewen's book has a simplistic "good vs. evil" view and lacks historical breadth. Ewen is obviously fairly left-wing, and paints conservative PR figures as "necromancers" repeatedly, while defending FDR's PR efforts in the depression as noble. There was also a real failure to identify other historical forces that shaped PR and America's faith in technological progress (as delivered by industry), besides the evil conniving of PR working for industry. This failure makes me wonder a little about the scholarship that supports this book. It's too emotional. Someone with broader historical/social knowledge should build from this, and write a definitive history.
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