Showing results by author "Richard" in Politics & Social Sciences

First published in 1928, Edward Bernays’ Propaganda may be the single most important work on public relations ever to appear. Bernays (1891-1995), a nephew of Sigmund Freud, shaped the management of public opinion at a time when the modern media were beginning to take their present shape. Propaganda today has a negative connotation, but Bernays uses the term in a neutral sense. Writing in the 1920s, he redefined what he called the “new propaganda” as public relations—a name that has stuck ever since.

The Viking Great Army landed in East Anglia in late 865 and over the following fifteen years it fought numerous battles in all four Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, made and broke peace treaties, and deposed or killed at least three Anglo-Saxon kings, replacing them with its own appointees. It had a major impact on English society, initiating extensive transformations in Anglo-Saxon society, culture, economy, and political organization. Previous Viking armies had raided only in the summer months, but the Great Army was a constant presence over this period.

Maria Theresa was the single most powerful woman in eighteenth-century Europe. At the age of just twenty-three she succeeded to the Habsburg domains only to find them contested by almost every power in Europe. In this engrossing biography, Richard Bassett traces Maria Theresa's life and complex legacy. Drawing on hitherto unpublished sources, Bassett reveals her keen sense of moderation and tolerance, innovative ideas on free trade and finance, and studied reluctance to resort to policies of territorial expansion.

Covid alerted the nation to the reality that K-12 schools were infested with ideologues bent on indoctrinating children. Then, three years after the beginning of the pandemic, the response to Hamas's genocidal assault on Israel made Americans aware that the same tumor had wholly sickened our country's colleges and universities. Now, conservatives—and increasingly, moderates and old-school liberals—want to know exactly how the radical left captured higher education.

Friedrich Reck might seem an unlikely rebel against Nazism. Not just a conservative but a rock-ribbed reactionary, he played the part of a landed gentleman, deplored democracy, and rejected the modern world outright. To Reck, the Nazis were ruthless revolutionaries in Gothic drag, and helpless as he was to counter the spell they had cast on the German people, he felt compelled to record the corruptions of their rule.