Bernays: The Founding Texts — Propaganda + Crystallizing Public Opinion (eBook Set)

Bernays: The Founding Texts

Edward L. Bernays | Two-book eBook set · United States edition

A confession: this page is built from the books’ own playbook. The moves are labeled in red as we make them. Watch yourself get sold.

"The only difference between ‘propaganda’ and ‘education,’ really, is in the point of view."
— Edward L. Bernays, 1923

↑ Reframing — the 1923 book’s signature move

That sentence moves a loaded word into neutral territory by changing the vantage point — and it lowered your guard about everything that follows. It is also the bridge between these two books: Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923) builds the theory of how opinion forms and moves; Propaganda (1928) states the case plainly. Theory, then manifesto, by the man who named the field.

What you get

• Two complete books in a single DRM-free EPUB: Propaganda (1928) and Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), unabridged from their original editions
• A unified, fully navigable table of contents across both books, with linked endnotes
• Reflowable and accessible (EPUB Accessibility 1.1 / WCAG-AA); instant download after purchase
• United States edition

↑ Price anchoring, disclosed

$14.99 for the set, against the $19.98 the two eBooks cost bought separately. The comparison is real — both prices are on this site — but placing it next to the price is anchoring, one of the oldest moves in the book. Both books, in fact. We labeled it anyway.

Why read them together

Read in sequence they are the clearest single account of how the twentieth century learned to persuade itself — in the words of the man who built the industry. Crystallizing Public Opinion lays the groundwork; Propaganda states the case plainly.

↑ Genuine scarcity, not the manufactured kind

No countdown, no “price rises tonight,” and nothing to wait for at all: the set downloads the minute you buy it.

P.S. You read all the labels and you’re still considering it. That’s not a failure of resistance — it’s the whole argument for the book. Bernays showed that knowing the mechanism and feeling its pull are two different things. The cure is to read the source.

About the author

Edward L. Bernays (1891–1995) was an Austrian-American writer and public-relations pioneer whose career spanned more than seventy years. His other works include Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), Propaganda (1928), Public Relations (1952) and his autobiography Biography of an Idea (1965).

Territory availability

This eBook set is available for purchase only by customers in the United States, United Kingdom, and selected EU countries. The original 1923 and 1928 texts are in the public domain in the United States; copyright status in other jurisdictions may differ.