Not every public relations scholar or practitioner will agree with the authors' depiction of public relations' often pernicious role in democratic and deliberative society. But this rich, wholly worthwhile, generative journey into a strategic history of "nature" and the constitutive role of communication in society's relationship to the environment serves as a crucial and essential text. It will help public relations and communication scholars, advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and professionally minded practitioners ask the right questions about the ethics and foundations of how we teach, research, and practice public relations and strategic communication.
Melissa Aronczyk is an associate professor at Rutgers University in the School of Communication & Information. She is the author of Branding the Nation: The Global Business of National Identity (Oxford 2013).
Maria I. Espinoza is a PhD candidate in the Sociology department at Rutgers University.