Julia Sonnevend’s timely and engaging book on charm provides a much-needed update to the idea that charisma fuels the politics of personality. In the age of social media, it is not distance and otherworldliness—staples of charisma—but authenticity and accessibility that are prized. I have been waiting for a book like this, and recommend it highly.

— Ruth Ben-Ghiat,
author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present

The idea of charm has never been more pertinent and divisive in the public sphere. Sonnevend lures us into a compelling and original exploration of the meaning of charm in contemporary politics. Through careful comparison and deep study, she invites us to ask: Is charm a panacea or a trap?

— Zizi Papacharissi,
author of After Democracy: Imagining Our Political Future

This excellent book offers a very timely study of the political uses and abuses of charm in the era of social media. Julia Sonnevend provides a rigorous analysis of the tools used by democratic and nondemocratic leaders alike to seduce and manipulate their political bases.

— Sergei Guriev,
coauthor of Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century

How does ‘charm’ operate in the mediated worlds of politics and international affairs? Julia Sonnevend brings her topic into analytic focus through engaging accounts of the media strategies of diverse political figures, revealing the communicative processes that transform an elusive personal quality into a consequential social fact.

—Paul DiMaggio, New York University