Propaganda by Edward Bernays is what's good.

Bernays is widely known as the "father of public relations" and this book, Propaganda, is literally self-described, on the back of the book, as his "manual for mass manipulation".

To his credit, Bernays, who also happened to be Sigmund Freud's nephew, did have a whole chapter toward the end of the book warning about how his tools of propaganda should not be used for malicious purposes. But, well, they didn't really stop anyone.

Either way, this book defined an entire field of influence, and the principles discussed in still portray a deep truth of society. Here are the first two sentences of the first chapter:

The concious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

Propaganda starts at 100mph and doesn't slow down for its 168 pages. Like it or not, almost 100 years after it was first published, Bernays' manual of influence is more relevant than ever.


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This is one of the only books that I've written all over. Seriously — my copy is riddled with notes all over the margins, tons of underlined sections of text, wild scribbles around important ideas.