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Luce and His Empire
In 35 chapters the author recounts in detail the career of Lunce and the impact of Time, Inc. on the worl. It is the first full record of Luce's propagandist crusades based on exhaustive research and many interviews. A major biographical accomplishment.
529 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1972
About the author
W.A. Swanberg
28 books1 followerA graduate of the University of Minnesota, William Andrew Swanberg worked as a journalist for newspapers in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and as an editor for Dell Publishing. After serving in the Office of War Information during World War II, Swanberg worked as a freelance writer and an author of a number of scholarly biographies.
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April 3, 2013
To some extent this book is a character assassination of Luce and his magazine. There is justification in this - Luce constantly promoted Chiang Kai Shek when his own reporters were writing about his corruption and his incompetence in military affairs. The stories would be re-written in New York to promote and reflect Luce’s views. The author also points out that Luce was obsessed in forming an American-Christian Asia onto his publications and onto the U.S. government with dire consequences. Chiang and his wife became rich from U.S. handouts. Luce again pressured and encouraged U.S. involvement in Vietnam because he did not want Vietnam to become another China. In this as well, he would over-write the stories that his reporters were sending from Saigon. Several reporters left Time on account of this. His intense hatred of atheistic communism was reflected as well in his publications.
But it is hard not to respect Luce the man. He basically invented the weekly newsmagazine. He started from nothing and created an empire. He hired young writers with little experience in journalism. As Mr. Swanberg points out he was a micro-manager and controlled all details of his magazines. He was a ruthless manager putting his nose into everything. Luce lacked the common touch –which is surprising given his incessant curiosity. He traveled the world several times over, but was not one to mingle with the ‘people’ – his quest was to talk with the rich and powerful. He treated waiters and his house-servants with disdain (the Luce household had trouble keeping their servants).
Another aspect that comes through in this book is how, since the turn of the century (the 1920’s), journalism has become a powerful force in the shaping of opinion and culture in the modern era. Prior to this, was it just political soapboxes shaping public opinion? With the advent of television the force of media has increased. It can be viewed as an unelected political party shaping our views.
What is missing from Mr. Swanberg’s book is the U.S. – there is nothing mentioned about ‘Time’ or Luce’s opinion on the emerging Civil Rights movement in the 1950’s. Not one word of Time’s coverage of the Kennedy assassination – certainly the epochal event of the post World War II era.
But it is hard not to respect Luce the man. He basically invented the weekly newsmagazine. He started from nothing and created an empire. He hired young writers with little experience in journalism. As Mr. Swanberg points out he was a micro-manager and controlled all details of his magazines. He was a ruthless manager putting his nose into everything. Luce lacked the common touch –which is surprising given his incessant curiosity. He traveled the world several times over, but was not one to mingle with the ‘people’ – his quest was to talk with the rich and powerful. He treated waiters and his house-servants with disdain (the Luce household had trouble keeping their servants).
Another aspect that comes through in this book is how, since the turn of the century (the 1920’s), journalism has become a powerful force in the shaping of opinion and culture in the modern era. Prior to this, was it just political soapboxes shaping public opinion? With the advent of television the force of media has increased. It can be viewed as an unelected political party shaping our views.
What is missing from Mr. Swanberg’s book is the U.S. – there is nothing mentioned about ‘Time’ or Luce’s opinion on the emerging Civil Rights movement in the 1950’s. Not one word of Time’s coverage of the Kennedy assassination – certainly the epochal event of the post World War II era.
Read
October 4, 2021The trick of the con-artist is not to convince you that he is very clever - but that you are. An hour with Time magazine has always left me with the flattering illusion that I am one of the best-informed men on earth. Yet such men don’t usually subscribe to Time. (The title itself relates to the ‘time poor’ executive who has to settle for a Reader’s Digest view of the world.)
Not that Henry R. Luce was strictly a con-artist, though there was a touch of the charlatan about him, which sat uncomfortably with his religious puritanism. It would not be the only case of mixed messaging through his long and uniquely distinguished career.
China and Yale were the two big influences that formed Henry Luce (and his magazine). His father was a missionary in Shandong, passionately dedicated to saving the souls of the Chinese, a mission that his son viewed as no less sacred and never abandoned. At Yale, he edited the main university magazine, issuing solemn polemics against Bolshevism, another lifelong crusade. But it was the friends he made at Yale that became the creative team that would re-invent journalism. Their names mean nothing to us now, least of all Briton Hadden, struck down by a virus at just thirty-one. But it was Hadden who pioneered the dramatic outlawing of conventional prose. Every sentence must sound startlingly different from anything else ever written. People were irreverently described as ‘snaggle-toothed’ or ‘bag-jowled’. ‘The flabby-chinned, gimlet-eyed candidate shambled and snarled…’, ‘the temperament-ridden, firmly-corseted prima donna minced and simpered.’ There was much of the jaunty student spirit about this, often irritating when it was not actually offensive. As for the news, it was simply lifted from other papers and then edited and slanted as Luce saw fit. But the formula worked, and Time magazine prospered mightily, right from its launch in 1923, helped on its way by the optimistic business atmosphere of the times.
Although the salaries were notoriously low, and the offices bare and bleak, I think I could have enjoyed working at Time Inc. in its exciting launch-phase (and not only because the female researchers were ordered to have good legs!), forming lively partnerships with this bright young team of Yalies. Except Luce himself, that is.
There is something chilling about this lonely, friendless autocrat whose smile never reached his ice-blue eyes, and who believed he communicated direct with God. His only known vice was chain-smoking. Food and drink meant nothing to him; in restaurants, he would simply continue the business meeting he had just come out of, oblivious of whether he had eaten or not.
Like many, he was impressed by Mussolini as the obvious ‘bulwark against communism’, but was slow to see through him, as others did. It was in his blood and bones to support the right-wing dictators, and this led to quite a lot of the slanted journalism that he was accused of. “We reject the stuffed dummy of impartiality” he said. The ‘believable lie’ was what he mastered, and some declared it to be deeply irresponsible.
After marrying his second wife, playwright Clare Boothe, he became a little more sociable. She was unbelievably glamorous, yet not without a self-critical faculty. When her first play flopped, she went straight back to her desk, determined to write a hit. It turned out to be The Women, notable for its all-female cast, and a huge success on stage and screen. When she was made Ambassador to Italy, Luce accompanied her there as her assistant, without too much indignity. (Neither of them ever had any sense of humour).
His last years were clouded by the failure of his dream of influencing China away from communism. Supporting intervention in Vietnam, he called it ‘one more chance for the American Century’. But it sounded more like ‘one last chance’ from the dying Luce.
It is impossible not to feel Luce’s influence on his biographer W.A. Swanberg, whose concise writing holds the attention in much the same way as Time - and Life and Fortune, dealt-with only in passing in this volume. There’s a lot to get through, World War II presenting a mass of international meetings with heads of state, which could have made for quite an indigestible load. But with Swanberg’s clean-swept prose, there’s not a dull sentence to be found.
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Not that Henry R. Luce was strictly a con-artist, though there was a touch of the charlatan about him, which sat uncomfortably with his religious puritanism. It would not be the only case of mixed messaging through his long and uniquely distinguished career.
China and Yale were the two big influences that formed Henry Luce (and his magazine). His father was a missionary in Shandong, passionately dedicated to saving the souls of the Chinese, a mission that his son viewed as no less sacred and never abandoned. At Yale, he edited the main university magazine, issuing solemn polemics against Bolshevism, another lifelong crusade. But it was the friends he made at Yale that became the creative team that would re-invent journalism. Their names mean nothing to us now, least of all Briton Hadden, struck down by a virus at just thirty-one. But it was Hadden who pioneered the dramatic outlawing of conventional prose. Every sentence must sound startlingly different from anything else ever written. People were irreverently described as ‘snaggle-toothed’ or ‘bag-jowled’. ‘The flabby-chinned, gimlet-eyed candidate shambled and snarled…’, ‘the temperament-ridden, firmly-corseted prima donna minced and simpered.’ There was much of the jaunty student spirit about this, often irritating when it was not actually offensive. As for the news, it was simply lifted from other papers and then edited and slanted as Luce saw fit. But the formula worked, and Time magazine prospered mightily, right from its launch in 1923, helped on its way by the optimistic business atmosphere of the times.
Although the salaries were notoriously low, and the offices bare and bleak, I think I could have enjoyed working at Time Inc. in its exciting launch-phase (and not only because the female researchers were ordered to have good legs!), forming lively partnerships with this bright young team of Yalies. Except Luce himself, that is.
There is something chilling about this lonely, friendless autocrat whose smile never reached his ice-blue eyes, and who believed he communicated direct with God. His only known vice was chain-smoking. Food and drink meant nothing to him; in restaurants, he would simply continue the business meeting he had just come out of, oblivious of whether he had eaten or not.
Like many, he was impressed by Mussolini as the obvious ‘bulwark against communism’, but was slow to see through him, as others did. It was in his blood and bones to support the right-wing dictators, and this led to quite a lot of the slanted journalism that he was accused of. “We reject the stuffed dummy of impartiality” he said. The ‘believable lie’ was what he mastered, and some declared it to be deeply irresponsible.
After marrying his second wife, playwright Clare Boothe, he became a little more sociable. She was unbelievably glamorous, yet not without a self-critical faculty. When her first play flopped, she went straight back to her desk, determined to write a hit. It turned out to be The Women, notable for its all-female cast, and a huge success on stage and screen. When she was made Ambassador to Italy, Luce accompanied her there as her assistant, without too much indignity. (Neither of them ever had any sense of humour).
His last years were clouded by the failure of his dream of influencing China away from communism. Supporting intervention in Vietnam, he called it ‘one more chance for the American Century’. But it sounded more like ‘one last chance’ from the dying Luce.
It is impossible not to feel Luce’s influence on his biographer W.A. Swanberg, whose concise writing holds the attention in much the same way as Time - and Life and Fortune, dealt-with only in passing in this volume. There’s a lot to get through, World War II presenting a mass of international meetings with heads of state, which could have made for quite an indigestible load. But with Swanberg’s clean-swept prose, there’s not a dull sentence to be found.
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May 16, 2021
Henry Luce was the worst possible candidate to run the empire of print that he did, but thank God he didn't win political office. He had no ability to see any value in opinions other than his own. Totally self-absorbed, he delighted in hearing his own voice, interrupting others before they could get out more than a sentence or two and going out to dinner only to hold forth to his fellow diners (as they sat in silence) while completely forgetting about ordering food.
In common with many self-righteous people, Luce saw God behind his views. He was a crusader against Communism, though not from any direct experience of it. He had a life-long obsession with the corrupt and incompetent Chiang Kai-shek, leader of China before he was forced to leave the mainland by Mao's Communist army. Luce was eager for the United States to start a war to return Chiang to power. He promoted taking on the USSR and China, even suggesting the Vietnam war be expanded to do it. He was strongly behind the stubborn refusal of the United States to recognize Communist China for so many years.
Denying any possibility of objectivity in reporting, his mouthpieces - Time and Life magazines - took the news from newspapers (paying them nothing for it) and used it quite loosely to voice opinions in what was known as "Timestyle"; the clever use of phrasing and colorful adjectives to elevate those Luce liked and skewer those he didn't. Photos were carefully chosen to make the favored look good and the disfavored look foolish.
In later years with a corp of journalists all its own, Time regularly dumped or edited their reports to give a version of the news in accord with the views of Henry Luce. All the while Time billed itself as "The Weekly Newsmagazine"
Sadly, the American public fell for it, making Luce wealthy and Time the leading magazine in the country in copies sold.
Luce was a fool for power and fame. He thought highly of Mussolini. He could easily become the fan of a person after one encounter, provided that person was famous.
He thought that a quick trip to a capitol city of a foreign country qualified him to speak with deep understanding of that country and its people.
This bizarre character hobnobbed with the leaders of the country. When you consider he was on the national stage at the same time as that other exemplar of the bizarre, J. Edgar Hoover, it's a miracle that the country, and the world, survived into the last quarter of the 20th century.
This book is accurately named "Luce and His Empire" because it tells the inside story of Time magazine too. That is a saving grace since Luce himself was about as one-dimensional as a man can be, never bothered for a second by any doubt he might be mistaken on any subject.
Swanberg's writing is straightforward, never elegant or finely crafted. It tells the story directly and, I got the feeling, with the author holding his nose as he wrote.
The best thing about Henry Luce is we survived him. He could have been, as a political leader, a monster on the order of Hitler, given his self-assurance, love of war and lack of affect for humanity. He craved the Presidency.
I am sorry to say that at one time I was a regular reader of Time magazine, having no inkling of its history or of the man who created it.
In common with many self-righteous people, Luce saw God behind his views. He was a crusader against Communism, though not from any direct experience of it. He had a life-long obsession with the corrupt and incompetent Chiang Kai-shek, leader of China before he was forced to leave the mainland by Mao's Communist army. Luce was eager for the United States to start a war to return Chiang to power. He promoted taking on the USSR and China, even suggesting the Vietnam war be expanded to do it. He was strongly behind the stubborn refusal of the United States to recognize Communist China for so many years.
Denying any possibility of objectivity in reporting, his mouthpieces - Time and Life magazines - took the news from newspapers (paying them nothing for it) and used it quite loosely to voice opinions in what was known as "Timestyle"; the clever use of phrasing and colorful adjectives to elevate those Luce liked and skewer those he didn't. Photos were carefully chosen to make the favored look good and the disfavored look foolish.
In later years with a corp of journalists all its own, Time regularly dumped or edited their reports to give a version of the news in accord with the views of Henry Luce. All the while Time billed itself as "The Weekly Newsmagazine"
Sadly, the American public fell for it, making Luce wealthy and Time the leading magazine in the country in copies sold.
Luce was a fool for power and fame. He thought highly of Mussolini. He could easily become the fan of a person after one encounter, provided that person was famous.
He thought that a quick trip to a capitol city of a foreign country qualified him to speak with deep understanding of that country and its people.
This bizarre character hobnobbed with the leaders of the country. When you consider he was on the national stage at the same time as that other exemplar of the bizarre, J. Edgar Hoover, it's a miracle that the country, and the world, survived into the last quarter of the 20th century.
This book is accurately named "Luce and His Empire" because it tells the inside story of Time magazine too. That is a saving grace since Luce himself was about as one-dimensional as a man can be, never bothered for a second by any doubt he might be mistaken on any subject.
Swanberg's writing is straightforward, never elegant or finely crafted. It tells the story directly and, I got the feeling, with the author holding his nose as he wrote.
The best thing about Henry Luce is we survived him. He could have been, as a political leader, a monster on the order of Hitler, given his self-assurance, love of war and lack of affect for humanity. He craved the Presidency.
I am sorry to say that at one time I was a regular reader of Time magazine, having no inkling of its history or of the man who created it.
February 2, 2023
TIME-LIFE publisher and owner Henry Luce invented the term "the American century" after World War II, so perhaps it is only fitting that he lived to witness its decline in just one generation. More so than William Randolph Hearst, the subject of another Swanberg biography of a publishing titan, Luce made as much news as he covered, and at times his coverage shaped the news his magazines ran. For better or worse, and it was mostly for the worse, he invented the newsweekly with TIME and high-gloss photojournalism with LIFE. (Alas, PEOPLE magazine is still with us, but Luce was dead by the time it launched, under TIME's banner, in 1974.) Ironic and outrageous then (to Luce, anyway) is that the empire came crumbling down in that part of the world that most obsessed him---Asia. Born to American parents in China Luce early on became a champion of Christian dictators in East Asia, Sygman Rhee in South Korea, Diem of South Viet Nam and especially Chiang Kai Shek of China. (Luce admired Franco too and from 1936-1939 expressed his hatred of the Spanish Republic in TIME.) TIME-L:IFE not only promoted these tyrants for their fervid anti-communism (So did Douglas MacArthur) but in offering a viable alternative to "atheistic Marxism". How? By lying. TIME told its readers that the Viet Nam War was easily being won by the U.S. and its gallant South Vietnamese allies, while "the poets, professors and long-hairs" who protested the war were a bunch of kooks. I want to give this devil two dues: 1. Luce favored the civil rights movement in the United States (perhaps to make the U.S. look better in the Third World) and made Martin Luther King Jr. TIME's Man of the Year for 1965 and 2. Luce never trusted Richard Nixon, and vice-versa, probably because Tricky Dick made Luce idol President Eisenhower look bad, yet Nixon appeared on more TIME covers than any other person in the history of the magazine, including the time TIME called for his resignation. This is not the portrait of a flawed giant so much as a man so blinded by anti-communism and emerging Asia that publishing for him to a back-seat to politics, and failed politics at that.
May 3, 2016
W.A. Swanberg's Citizen Hearst was so good that I passed over many other well-deserving books on my bookshelf and ordered a copy of Swanberg's biography of Henry Luce, founder of Time-Life magazines. Usually I don't like to read biographies on people I've never heard of, but since Swanberg is such a good writer and historian, I figured it would be an excellent way to fill in some holes in my understanding of the first half of the 20th century.
Luce built the Time-Life publishing empire entirely from scratch. The son of American missionaries in China at the turn of the century, Luce graduated from Yale in the 1920s, where he got the idea for a weekly magazine aggregating the important news of the week with big-picture analysis. The result was Time, a magazine that went on to be the most influential news magazine of the 20th century and whose red-frame covers are still ubiquitous today.
Time was a different breed of news, if you can call it news at all. In Time's early days, its writers barely left their New York offices; they simply picked out stories in the newspaper and wrote pieces that included the gist of the story itself, coupled with their own analysis. Luce rightly believed that busy people didn't always have the time to read the daily newspaper. Why not put together the weekly news for them?
This would have all been well and good if the magazine was run under an honest man without a political agenda. It soon became clear that Time was not a news magazine at all but an instrument through which Luce, a God-fearing Presbyterian, a Communist-hater, could spread his particular world view to millions of impressionable people. His talented writers, often dispatched to far-flung places around the world, began to realize that their stories were being altered in Time-Life's HQ in New York City, often by Luce himself. In this way, Time (and Life, the picture magazine) were just mediums for Luce's propaganda. But because Time portrayed itself as a news magazine, the propaganda was often so subtle that the average reader didn't realize he was being duped. Some of Luce's writers quit in disgust after seeing their writing altered, but the greedy ones turned a blind-eye, calculating that the money was just too good to even think of leaving.
The main theme of through Time's stories over the decades was anti-Communism. Luce was so dismayed over America's insufficient aid to Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist Army that he seemed to make it his life's work to make sure something like that would never happen again. This view was sadly taken to the extreme through the McCarthy era and our disastrous war in Vietnam, a war that was built on lies on every level and got 58,000 Americans killed for basically no reason.
This book was important for me to read because it made me realize that everyone has an agenda. Every news story that you read in a newspaper has been carefully edited by not only the writer but an untold number of editors who may want you to get a certain take on a news item that you wouldn't get if you were there reporting on the event yourself. I'm not saying that everyone is out to dupe you, but it's good to get your news and other information from a variety of sources.
Luce built the Time-Life publishing empire entirely from scratch. The son of American missionaries in China at the turn of the century, Luce graduated from Yale in the 1920s, where he got the idea for a weekly magazine aggregating the important news of the week with big-picture analysis. The result was Time, a magazine that went on to be the most influential news magazine of the 20th century and whose red-frame covers are still ubiquitous today.
Time was a different breed of news, if you can call it news at all. In Time's early days, its writers barely left their New York offices; they simply picked out stories in the newspaper and wrote pieces that included the gist of the story itself, coupled with their own analysis. Luce rightly believed that busy people didn't always have the time to read the daily newspaper. Why not put together the weekly news for them?
This would have all been well and good if the magazine was run under an honest man without a political agenda. It soon became clear that Time was not a news magazine at all but an instrument through which Luce, a God-fearing Presbyterian, a Communist-hater, could spread his particular world view to millions of impressionable people. His talented writers, often dispatched to far-flung places around the world, began to realize that their stories were being altered in Time-Life's HQ in New York City, often by Luce himself. In this way, Time (and Life, the picture magazine) were just mediums for Luce's propaganda. But because Time portrayed itself as a news magazine, the propaganda was often so subtle that the average reader didn't realize he was being duped. Some of Luce's writers quit in disgust after seeing their writing altered, but the greedy ones turned a blind-eye, calculating that the money was just too good to even think of leaving.
The main theme of through Time's stories over the decades was anti-Communism. Luce was so dismayed over America's insufficient aid to Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist Army that he seemed to make it his life's work to make sure something like that would never happen again. This view was sadly taken to the extreme through the McCarthy era and our disastrous war in Vietnam, a war that was built on lies on every level and got 58,000 Americans killed for basically no reason.
This book was important for me to read because it made me realize that everyone has an agenda. Every news story that you read in a newspaper has been carefully edited by not only the writer but an untold number of editors who may want you to get a certain take on a news item that you wouldn't get if you were there reporting on the event yourself. I'm not saying that everyone is out to dupe you, but it's good to get your news and other information from a variety of sources.
Want to Read
May 20, 2016Quite a story. Very detailed biography about a man who led an amazing life. I really had no idea who Luce was before reading the book. I was never a fan of TIME magazine so that never entered my thoughts when choosing to read this. It was a book the looked good when I bought it at a bargain book sale.
I don't know the story behind the details the author has in the book. Maybe it says in the preface and I forgot but he is very detailed so I can only assume his interviews and access to personal papers and diaries, etc were what allowed him to piece together so many stories.
Luce was lucky to get into college, not because he was dumb, but mainly because his parents were missionaries and really didn't have money to send him to an Ivy League school. He obviously made the most of it as he and his rival classmate started TIME together basically right out of school and became very successful almost immediately.
Hard worker. Workaholic really based on the details in the book. I'm surprised either of his wives married him as it sounded like his work always came first with the only exception of going to church.
The real irony to me is here is a famous publisher of a politically-oriented news magazine that BLATANTLY was Republican and/or Conservative. Anything Republicans did was "great" and not to be questioned and basically anything Democrats like FDR and Truman did were stupid at best. Talk about a propaganda machine. It almost makes you blanch with disgust until you realize that now the shoe is on the other foot. The New York Times, Washington Post, and other major papers are so in the tank for Democrats you can't get a straight news story without it being written in a slanted way. I don't know if Luce "invented" that type of journalism but he sure had an early start in comparison. So Republicans can cry all they want, but one of the most famous magazines was TIME, followed closely by LIFE and then Readers Digest. All basically leaning "right" for most of the 20th Century.
I probably enjoyed reading about his second wife Claire Boothe Luce more. Very witty and engaging. I had read several of her quotes and used them in speeches, but shamefully had no idea who she was. So I'm looking forward to picking up a biography at some point on her life as well.
All and all a good biography. A little long because it really is nearly a year by year account of his life. A lot going on, but somewhat tedious because of Luce's single-mindedness on so many political fronts. I would only read this again because I enjoyed the challenge of "big words" sprinkled throughout the book. A challenging read because the author uses more of the English language that most writers. I like that personally. But the story is what it is and I don't feel the need to engross myself more in this person. I'd rather read other biographies of the founding fathers or other historical figures that have multiple books written about them.
I don't know the story behind the details the author has in the book. Maybe it says in the preface and I forgot but he is very detailed so I can only assume his interviews and access to personal papers and diaries, etc were what allowed him to piece together so many stories.
Luce was lucky to get into college, not because he was dumb, but mainly because his parents were missionaries and really didn't have money to send him to an Ivy League school. He obviously made the most of it as he and his rival classmate started TIME together basically right out of school and became very successful almost immediately.
Hard worker. Workaholic really based on the details in the book. I'm surprised either of his wives married him as it sounded like his work always came first with the only exception of going to church.
The real irony to me is here is a famous publisher of a politically-oriented news magazine that BLATANTLY was Republican and/or Conservative. Anything Republicans did was "great" and not to be questioned and basically anything Democrats like FDR and Truman did were stupid at best. Talk about a propaganda machine. It almost makes you blanch with disgust until you realize that now the shoe is on the other foot. The New York Times, Washington Post, and other major papers are so in the tank for Democrats you can't get a straight news story without it being written in a slanted way. I don't know if Luce "invented" that type of journalism but he sure had an early start in comparison. So Republicans can cry all they want, but one of the most famous magazines was TIME, followed closely by LIFE and then Readers Digest. All basically leaning "right" for most of the 20th Century.
I probably enjoyed reading about his second wife Claire Boothe Luce more. Very witty and engaging. I had read several of her quotes and used them in speeches, but shamefully had no idea who she was. So I'm looking forward to picking up a biography at some point on her life as well.
All and all a good biography. A little long because it really is nearly a year by year account of his life. A lot going on, but somewhat tedious because of Luce's single-mindedness on so many political fronts. I would only read this again because I enjoyed the challenge of "big words" sprinkled throughout the book. A challenging read because the author uses more of the English language that most writers. I like that personally. But the story is what it is and I don't feel the need to engross myself more in this person. I'd rather read other biographies of the founding fathers or other historical figures that have multiple books written about them.
September 7, 2009
Swanberg is very critical of Time co-founder Henry Luce, but provides copious examples to support his critique of Luce's approach and his various blind spots. He also makes the occasional acknowledgment of Luce's better qualities.
Here's a nice quote from Swanberg (pp.386-387): “…the underlying purpose of Time’s committee-and-meatgrinder system seemed to be to simplify and facilitate the doctoring of news. […:] No news publication was so error-ridden over the years as Time on the committee system. The system had long, long since proved ineffectual in its original purpose of ensuring accuracy. Time’s retention of it suggested appreciation for a method permitting convenient departure from the truth.”
I found Luce's admiration of Mussolini fairly shocking; Time was also fairly blase about the danger of Hitler before the beginning of WW2. It was always about the threat of godless communism that got Luce's lather up.
In 1934 Luce gave a speech in Scranton, Ohio where he said the following: “The moral force of Fascism, appearing in totally different forms in different nations, may be the inspiration for the next general march of mankind.” What a guy.
Here's a nice quote from Swanberg (pp.386-387): “…the underlying purpose of Time’s committee-and-meatgrinder system seemed to be to simplify and facilitate the doctoring of news. […:] No news publication was so error-ridden over the years as Time on the committee system. The system had long, long since proved ineffectual in its original purpose of ensuring accuracy. Time’s retention of it suggested appreciation for a method permitting convenient departure from the truth.”
I found Luce's admiration of Mussolini fairly shocking; Time was also fairly blase about the danger of Hitler before the beginning of WW2. It was always about the threat of godless communism that got Luce's lather up.
In 1934 Luce gave a speech in Scranton, Ohio where he said the following: “The moral force of Fascism, appearing in totally different forms in different nations, may be the inspiration for the next general march of mankind.” What a guy.
February 11, 2012
Friends of the Hilton Head Library. An interesting but just average written book about the founder of the popular "special interest magazines". He changed the face of journalism with Life ... news through pictures.
August 24, 2008
Henry Luce started Time magazine in the 1940's and went on to create a media empire. He married Clare Booth Luce, a character, who became ambassador to Italy.
December 21, 2012
bio oof founder of time magazine. interesting
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews