All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians
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Phil Elwood. (2024). All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians. Henry Holt and Co.

Phil Elwood. 2024. All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians. Henry Holt and Co.

Phil Elwood, All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians. Henry Holt and Co, 2024.

Phil Elwood. All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians. Henry Holt and Co, 2024.

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All the Worst Humans

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1. • role: Author
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   • bioText: Phil Elwood is a public relations operative. He was born in New York City, grew up in Idaho, and moved to Washington, DC at age twenty to intern for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He completed his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University, and his graduate studies at the London School of Economics before starting his career at a small PR firm. Over the last two decades, Elwood has worked for some of the top – and bottom – PR firms in Washington. He lives in DC.
   • name: Phil Elwood

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2024-06-25T00:00:00-04:00

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title

All the Worst Humans

fullDescription

New York Times Editors' Choice
"A rollicking, unexpectedly affecting story. . . It's going to be one of the big, buzzy Beltway books of the year."
—Politico
A bridge-burning, riotous memoir by a top PR operative in Washington who exposes the secrets of the $129-billion industry that controls so much of what we see and hear in the media—from a man who used to pull the strings, and who is now pulling back the curtain.
After nearly two decades in the Washington PR business, Elwood wants to come clean, by exposing the dark underbelly of the very industry that's made him so successful. The first step is revealing exactly what he's been up to for the past twenty years—and it isn't pretty.
Elwood has worked for a murderer's row of questionable clients, including Gaddafi, Assad, and the government of Qatar. In All the Worst Humans, Elwood unveils how the PR business works, and how the truth gets made, spun, and sold to the public—not shying away from the gritty details of his unlikely career.
This is a piercing look into the corridors of money, power, politics, and control, all told in Elwood's disarmingly funny and entertaining voice. He recounts a four-day Las Vegas bacchanal with a dictator's son, plotting communications strategies against a terrorist organization in Western Africa, and helping to land a Middle Eastern dictator's wife a glowing profile in Vogue on the same time the Arab Spring broke out. And he reveals all his slippery tricks for seducing journalists in order to create chaos and ultimately cover for politicians, dictators, and spies—the industry-secret tactics that led to his rise as a political PR pro.
Along the way, Phil walks the halls of the Capitol, rides in armored cars through Abuja, and watches his client lose his annual income at the roulette table. But as he moved up the ranks, he felt worse and worse about the sleaziness of it all—until Elwood receives a shocking wake-up call from the FBI. This risky game nearly cost Elwood his life and his freedom. Seeing the light, Elwood decides to change his ways, and his clients, and to tell the full truth about who is the worst human.

reviews

1. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     January 1, 2024
     

     A PR operative who spent decades as part of the $129-billion industry that manipulates the public narrative writes a tell-all that details his work helping support Gaddafi and Assad--and a parade of others. Until one day the FBI shows up and he professes an about face. Prepub Alert.

     Copyright 2023 Library Journal

     Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

2. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     March 15, 2024
     A breakneck-pace memoir of a career drumming up publicity for some of the worst human beings in the public eye. The cliche of public relations client horror stories involves trashed hotel rooms and drunken shenanigans, but Elwood--a publicity "arsonist" for publicity firms serving tyrants, war criminals, the government of Qatar, and a host of wrong-side-of-the-law American politicians--has all of those beat. His debut memoir opens in 2018, as he opens his door to armed FBI agents, wondering which of his many extralegal actions from 20 years in PR had brought them there. Beginning his career as an intern for Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a position acquired with a fake ID, he went on to work years in private PR, where he drank heavily, struggled with depression and bipolar disorder, and plunged into debt despite a generous salary. His client list included, among others, a "murderers' row of foreign dictators"--e.g., Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi's adult son, whom Elwood babysat through a wild weekend in Las Vegas punctuated with strippers and duffel bags full of cash. In one memorable anecdote, the author writes about "masterminding a trade war between Antigua and the United States" out of vengeance for an old client. Despite the Jason Bourne persona, Elwood reveals himself as a fairly complex character, falling head over heels for the woman who would become his wife and traveling the world hobnobbing with human monsters while secreting an Opus the Penguin plush toy in his luggage for comfort. Exciting and full of bluster, this thrilling tale is hard to look away from--despite the fact that, as the author admits, his misdeeds are "unsettling, like watching someone get mugged in broad daylight and doing nothing to stop it." A rowdy, dirty-pleasure story of how it feels to cater to unsavory people for money and excitement.

     COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     April 29, 2024
     A PR man with a newfound conscience recalls his propaganda campaigns in this raucous debut memoir. Elwood recaps his career at leading Washington, D.C., public relations firms and his strategies to promulgate spin concocted to serve his clients’ hidden agendas. These included a campaign to procure a congressional resolution opposing America’s bid for the 2022 soccer World Cup on the ground that the money should be spent on children’s physical education instead—a ploy that convinced FIFA to let his client, Qatar, stage the Cup—and a successful effort to get Vogue to write a puff piece on the wife of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad that painted the country as “a place without bombings, unrest or kidnappings.” Elwood hit bottom working for Psy Group, an Israeli company that peddled election-influencing services; his activities got him investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller, which provoked a nervous breakdown and suicide attempt. (Later chapters trace a redemptive upswing, which included doing PR for ketamine as an anti-depressant.) Elwood’s picaresque features mordantly funny scenes (a standout chapter involves shepherding client Muammar Gadafi’s deranged adult son Mutassim around Las Vegas) and a savvy exploration of the machinery of public relations, including how astroturfed nonprofits and content-hungry journalists function as PR mouthpieces. The result is an entertaining, wised-up account of the dark arts of reputation laundering.

popularity

4219

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New York Times Editors' Choice
"A rollicking, unexpectedly affecting story. . . It's going to be one of the big, buzzy Beltway books of the year."
—Politico
A bridge-burning, riotous memoir by a top PR operative in Washington who exposes the secrets of the $129-billion industry that controls so much of what we see and hear in the media—from a man who used to pull the strings, and who is now pulling back the curtain.
After nearly two decades in the Washington PR business, Elwood wants to come clean, by exposing the dark underbelly of the very industry that's made him so successful. The first step is revealing exactly what he's been up to for the past twenty years—and it isn't pretty.
Elwood has worked for a murderer's row of questionable clients, including Gaddafi, Assad, and the government of Qatar. In All the Worst Humans, Elwood unveils how the PR business works, and how the truth gets made,...

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All the Worst Humans How I Made News for Dictators Tycoons and Politicians

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How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians

publisher

Henry Holt and Co.

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   • description: Biography & Autobiography / Political
2. • code: POL064000
   • description: Political Science / Corruption & Misconduct
3. • code: POL065000
   • description: Political Science / Political Process / Media & Internet