Heidenry,J. Theirs Was the Kingdom. 1993
Heidenry, John. Theirs Was the Kingdom: Lila and DeWitt Wallace and the
Story of the Reader's Digest. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993. 701 pages.
Reader's Digest founder DeWitt Wallace made a fortune by correctly
estimating the American consumer and offering his reprinted pablum through
direct-mail campaigns. More than just a magazine, Reader's Digest was a
phenomenon that mirrored middle-class culture and values. By now Reader's
Digest is laying off employees -- another sign, perhaps, that the American
middle class is on its way out. At its peak, the Digest had a circulation of
18 million; only the Bible did better. Not to be outdone, in 1982 the Digest
even tried to market a condensed version of the Bible.
The Digest empire, particularly through its Washington bureau, was a
major outlet for Cold War propaganda and had significant connections to the
U.S. intelligence community. Author John Heidenry does an excellent job of
ferreting out these connections, even though this accounts for less than
one-sixth of the book. The remainder of this comprehensive account revolves
around the private and public lives of Lila and DeWitt Wallace, and the
handful of fawning executives who ran the office in Pleasantville, New York
beginning in the 1920s. From these offices, the empire grew to become the
world's most successful publisher of magazines, and the largest global
marketer of books.
ISBN 0-393-03466-6
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