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Ferdinando Fasce. La democrazia degli affari: comunicazione aziendale e discorso pubblico negli Stati Uniti, 7900-7940. Rome: Carocci, 2000. 216 pp. ISBN 88-430-1535-4. 33,000 ITL.
Ferdinando Fasce's book (the title of which can be translated as "Business Democracy: Corporate Communication and Public Discourse in the United States") is a brilliant attempt to narrate the history of the relationship between large U.S. corporations and public opinion, seen from the perspective of the origins and development of corporate communications systems. The book cannot, strictly speaking, be termed a study of business history; in fact, Fasce tends to occupy a crossroads among disciplines, at a point where the history of corporations intersects with those of mass culture and political cultures. The focus of Fasce's analysis is most accurately described as the process of defining and structuring the public discourse of leading corporations.
It is an evolution that Fasce traces throughout a period stretching from the end of the nineteenth century to the outbreak of World War II. In little more than forty years, the U.S. business community passed from obstinate silence...