Long before algorithms measured attention, Edward Bernays learned how to shape it. The nephew of Sigmund Freud and self-styled “counsel on public relations,” Bernays redefined democracy as a system of guided consent. From wartime propaganda to consumer capitalism, from bacon breakfasts to regime change, he built the invisible machinery that still governs what we believe and why.

This episode traces Bernays’ life from his Viennese origins to his century-long campaign to rationalize persuasion — the quiet invention of the modern mind. Blending biography and analysis, Code and Council examines how one man’s faith in psychological management transformed politics, commerce, and truth itself.

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