ABOUT THE BOOK
Blank Rome associate Thomas F. Brier Jr. will serve as a speaker at a Hershey Public Library book talk, taking place Monday, January 19, 2026, from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. Tom will discuss his book, While Reason Slept.
In While Reason Slept, Tom traces the history of America back to its founding principles, showing that the world as an idea of reason is a practical imperative. Beginning in the early twentieth century, however, America slowly began to shift away from a country of rational citizens and toward a country of irrational consumers. Tom contends that America's irrational transformation has its origins in the work of Edward Bernays, the forefather of modern propaganda (the “engineering of consent,” as he called it), whose Freudian tactics of manipulation have been appropriated and expounded upon by every major influencer of the past century, from the Third Reich to Ronald Reagan to Facebook.
For more information, please visit the event webpage.