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A review by shellyhartner
The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin's Russia by David King
4.0
I know I'm not the only one reading this book who is old enough to remember a time when the photos we saw in publication were not Photoshopped, when conventional wisdom was that people lied, but photos did not.
How naive we were.
This book is proof that manipulating people through manipulated photos is nothing new, and neither is the kind of personal branding we see in the age of social media. Stalin and Lenin were masters of creating their own brand and writing their own story, and they were doing it nearly a century before anyone had heard of Facebook. Unfortunately, they weren't just retouching photos to remove a few wrinkles, smallpox scars, or extra pounds - they were using it to wipe people who fell out of favor out of history. Absolutely chilling.
How naive we were.
This book is proof that manipulating people through manipulated photos is nothing new, and neither is the kind of personal branding we see in the age of social media. Stalin and Lenin were masters of creating their own brand and writing their own story, and they were doing it nearly a century before anyone had heard of Facebook. Unfortunately, they weren't just retouching photos to remove a few wrinkles, smallpox scars, or extra pounds - they were using it to wipe people who fell out of favor out of history. Absolutely chilling.