In Republic of Spin, David Greenberg recounts the rise of the White House spin machine from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama. His sweeping narrative takes us behind the scenes to see how the techniques of image making and message craft work. We meet Franklin Roosevelt huddling with his private pollsters, Ronald Reagan’s aides crafting his nightly news sound bites, George W. Bush staging his extravagant photo-opportunities, and the backstage visionaries who pioneered new ways of gauging public opinion and mastering the media.

Greenberg also examines the profound debates Americans have waged over the effect of spin on politics, looking at whether spin helps leaders manipulate the citizenry or whether it allows them to engage more fully in the democratic project.