LUCE AND HIS EMPIRE

by W. A. Swanberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 29, 1972

Lucely speaking, a booboisie-bound, Book-of-the-Month-clubbed (September) biog of sometime news nabob Henry Robinson Luce, storied smoothly if subspectacularly by scribbler Swanberg who is no stranger to the princes of the press (vide Pulitzer, 1967; Citizen Hearst, 1961). But since Marshall McLuhan once opined ""nobody could tell the truth in Time style"" (Westbrook Pegler called it ""a nervous disease of the typewriter""), let's put it another way: although this life of Luce and his Empire, Inc. has more ballast than bark, it is a readable and thoroughly researched account which should find a reasonably sizable audience, not only because of the BOMC push but because Luce was a true son of the bitch goddess Success, a fabulous scion of The American Century -- the perfect subject for biography. ""He was patriotic, a believer in America, an extravagant admirer of Theodore Roosevelt,"" reports Swanberg. ""His national loyalty would always be a blend of Roosevelt, Beveridge and Dink Stover."" But more than that -- and this is Swanberg's theme -- Luce viewed journalism as the ""road to influence and power. He had those ideas about government, religion and international relations which he wished to promote."" And that promotion -- a clever blend of propaganda, stylistic catchiness, shrewd business sense, personal dynamism, and the luck of the God-fearing -- is Swanberg's plot. The chronicle is presented objectively; no substantive judgments are offered on the Lucean campaign to bend American opinion to his own through that nervous typewriter. On second thought, perhaps that is Swanberg's subtle way of putting the man who made Time and Life in perspective.

Pub Date: Sept. 29, 1972

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Scribners

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1972

Categories: NONFICTION