“A superbly researched history of the optimization of everyday life in the name of capitalist efficiency without regard to a media system fit for democracy. This outstanding book shows how our datafied societies arise not simply from technology disruptions but from efforts to shape the future in the interest of profit.”
Robin Mansell, Professor Emerita, London School of Economics and Political Science
“Selling the American People is a major contribution to the political economy of communication and histories of optimization. McGuigan leaves us questioning the consequences of this decades long quest to better discriminate with data and computers.”
Fenwick McKelvey, Associate Professor, Concordia University; author of Internet Daemons: Digital Communications Possessed
“Ready or not, the brave new world of adtech is here!”
Choice
“McGuigan does a masterful job in showing us how we are living in a world dominated by data and algorithms. What we experience today is the result of efficiency and the commodification of the American audience. The book does this in a meaningful way, by chronologically regaling the tale of modern advertising.”
Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly
“In his consistently illuminating book, Lee McGuigan shows both that A) the advertising industry's project of selling tech that promises maximally effective ads—ads that now tinge every corner of the online experience—is nothing new, and in fact was many decades in the making, and B) that this is ultimately terrible for society. It's propulsive, compelling, even fiery. It's ultimately a call to stop letting advertisers dictate the qualities of our public spaces, online and off.”
LA Times
“Selling the American People is essential artillery in the battle against digital age presentism and a must-read for anyone interested in the history and logistics of adtech.”
International Journal of Communication
“McGuigan's book is a detailed historical prelude to the existing power relations of surveillance capitalism.”
The Communication Review
“Selling the American People is an important contribution to the history of marketing, to understanding the role of advertising in legitimizing and concretizing our data-based and technocratic society, and to the subfield of critical advertising studies.”
H-Net Book Reviews
“Selling the American People is a fascinating narrative of how midcentury management scientists, mathematicians, and ad agencies sought to solve the puzzle of how to place advertising effectively and how the adtech industry today follows in their footsteps.”
Business History Review
