Bookish Delights 2010: The Nonfiction Edition - Page 3

The Man Who Sold America: The Amazing (but True!) Story of Albert D. Lasker and the Creation of the Advertising Century
by Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and Arthur W. Schultz

Meet one of the original 'Mad Men' who made household names as of Kleenex, Pepsodent, and Sunkist. Quaker Oats Puffed Rice and Puffed Wheat cereals were "foods shot from guns,” Palmolive soap could give you "beauty appeal," and, when the rubber meets the road, it’s Goodyear "all-weather" tires all the way.

The legacy of unwitting pop-culture pacemaker and "super-salesman of the generation" (according to Will Hays, political puppet-master and cultural gadabout and gadfly) Albert D. Lasker, the paradoxical pioneer who paved the way for 20th century advertising and molded modern consumer response, was a challenging task, admits the authors of The Man Who Sold America: The Amazing (but True!) Story of Albert D. Lasker and the Creation of the Advertising Century. For one thing, Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and Arthur W. Schultz found in their evidence and research that Lasker was prone to overstate, elaborate, and fabricate his life’s events, generating “so much electricity — and static – around himself that the reality of his life tended to be hidden from its observers.” And moreover, “Lasker tried consciously to obscure his own role in almost all that he did – to remain the man behind the curtain,” while others took the spotlight.

The particulars of the Oz-like enigma are culled from a recently discovered trove of Lasker's papers — and perhaps the head-scratching complexities are just the qualifications the job calls for. “Orator and entrepreneur, statesman and pioneer, depressive and overachiever”: The rich and compelling Man Who Sold America shows us that “These conflicting legacies would advance Albert Lasker’s career, shape his emotions, and dictate his dreams.”

A New Literary History of America
Edited by Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors

You’ll try to zig, but you just might zag… Take a close look at the over 200 original essays A New Literary History of America in the Table of Contents or delve into the topics in the comprehensive Index, and even the short bibliographies at the end of each reading. Better yet, as the book “is a reexamination of the American experience as seen through a literary glass, where what is at issue is speech, in its many forms,” turn over the tome and flip through it to scan the headlines that top each commentary about American history, literature, society, politics, religion, culture, and technology. Since I’m not a real methodical kind of reader when it comes to kaleidoscopic catchall compendiums like this, I succumbed to my impulsive nature, and all systematic disciplines were no-go.

Article Author: Gordon Hauptfleisch

Gordon Hauptfleisch is a Blogcritics Books Editor, freelance writer, and book reviewer for San Diego Union Tribune Books (R.I.P.). For many years he worked in and managed bookstores and record stores, and most recently was purchasing manager for San Diego Technical Books. …

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