The President and Fellows of Harvard College

The Shocking History of Advertising by E. S. Turner

Review by: Ralph M. Hower
The Business History Review, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Jun., 1955), pp. 206-207
Published by: The President and Fellows of Harvard College
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period. His discussion of the promotion, construction, financing and entrepreneurship of the canal is well conceived and extremely well written. Unfortunately, his attempt to separate out the interrelated aspects of the company
history leads to some duplication and confusion. That it is not more confusing,
is a tribute to the painstakingwork of the author.
In the modest task that he has set for himself, Mr. Aitken has succeeded
remarkablywell. He has wisely avoided the easy generalization and confined
himself to setting down, in his own words, "nothing which further inquiry or
more penetrating analysis might prove false." Historians might argue that the
book throws no new light on the history of the period and that its structure
is too limiting. However, it is hoped that Mr. Aitken's excursion into this
difficultfield will encourage both historiansand economists to take a fresh view
of Canadianhistory.
O. W. MAIN
Universityof Toronto

The Shocking History of Advertising. By E. S. Turner. New York, E. P.

Dutton & Company,Inc., 1953. Pp. 341.
Mr. Turner's book deserves considerationhere only because it has achieved
a favorable reception among intelligent but apparently undiscriminatingreaders
on both sides of the Atlantic. The title is misleading, for only in the loosest
possible usage can the contents be described as history. The author has assembled an array of commercial advertisements appearing in England and
America from the seventeenth century down to the present- examples of the
quaint, the amusing, the disgusting, and varying degrees of the deceptive.
Since it is, of course, difficult to present in print samples of radio or television
advertising, these two media are discussed rather than exemplified.
There is no serious attempt to show the economic factors (other than greed)
which underlie the great expansion of advertising during the past two centuries. And, while various advertisementsare occasionally related to their cultural environment,such efforts are so sporadic and so limited as to fail almost
completely to give the subject adequate perspective.
Even if such faults had been remedied the book would still fail to qualify
as a serious historical undertaking simply because it is so one-sided in its approach. It is not a tirade against advertising. Instead, the author never moralizes, never raises his voice, contenting himself with a brief good-humored or
cynical comment or, more often, no comment at all - merely a straightforward
quotation. The examples he has chosen speak for themselves!
This apparent objectivity is deceptive, for the author, like many of the advertisers he cites, has quietly refrained from giving us more than one side of
the story- the seamy side. One might argue that the whole story, presented
in well-rounded and balanced fashion, would add up to an indictment of
commercial advertisers. Possibly so, but does it help matters to suppress the
fact that much advertising is accurative, informative, and helpful to the consumer?
Thus the title of Mr. Turner'sbook is misleading in still another sense. For,
strictly speaking, it is not the history of advertising as such which is shocking
but rather the use of advertising in the hands of unscrupulous, misguided, or
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thoughtless people. This distinction is easily overlooked, but it is fundamental.

Failure to recognize it aggravates the problem of understanding advertising
and doing something constructive about checking its abuse. Advertising itself
is simply a means of communicationon a large scale. It arouses anger, disgust,
or admiration because of the purpose to which it is put and the manner in
which it is done. Mr. Turner is too intelligent not to recognize that advertising
can be a constructive as well as a destructive activity. Nonetheless, his book
concentrates upon examples of exaggeration, fraud, and gross violations of
"good taste," and it is not until the very last sentence that he connects advertising explicitly with the men who prepare it and those who respond to it.
Whether it is "good" or "bad" or "shocking,"as with many other instruments
of man's devising, depends on how it is used.
At no point does the author face the important question of alternatives, although it is clear, if one reads closely, that he is aware of some. One alternative,
as British experience proves, is a government broadcasting corporation with
officialsjealous of its monopoly and so certain of their judgment about what is
good for the public that they would suppress all competition within the country. Some of them would even like to jam the waves so as to prevent misguided
listeners from receiving programs which originate in foreign sources. This in
England in 1951 ..
One seems driven to the conclusion that Mr. Turner has written not to enlighten but to entertain. In this he has succeeded. Perhaps it is but a logical
extension of his cynicism that the author has permitted his book to appear
under a misleading title and wrapped in a dust jacket which misrepresentsthe
contents.
RALPH M. HOWER

HarvardGraduateSchool of Business Administration

Chartered Banking in Canada. By A. B. Jamieson. Toronto, Ryerson Press,

1953. Pp. 394.
Mr. Jamieson has undertaken to describe Canadian commercial banking for
the young man who has elected a career in Canada's chartered banks. It is a
specific and well-defined purpose, and Mr. Jamiesonstays with it from one end
of his book to the other. The neophyte should know something about the historical development of the system in which he works, and so half the book is
given to that; and he should also know as much as possible about current practice - how the banks are organized and administered, what loans are made
and how they are secured, where and when foreign exchange is bought, and
similar matters of day-to-day banking- and so the rest of the book is a guide
to Canadian procedure. No doubt there are other things the young banker
should know about banking, but these are probably taken care of in later sections of the curriculum Mr. Jamieson envisages; and in the meantime, the
material here provided is all worth the beginner's study.
The purpose of the book being what it is, it follows that its tone is pretty
consistently descriptive and institutional. There is no monetary theory, nothing
very much on the distinctive problems of the Canadian economy, and surprisingly little in the way of statistical information. What is given is what the
branch manager should see as he looks south to his teller's wicket and north
- 207 -

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