If Donny Deutsch and Phil Dusenberry’s memoirs are just too late 20th century for you, check out The Man Everybody Knew: Bruce Barton and the Making of Modern America, by Richard M. Fried, a professor of history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Barton, of course, co-founded Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn, which became BBDO. Aside from his work on Madison Avenue, Barton was a prolific writer (of novels, magazine articles and religious texts), a magazine editor and a political adviser. Fried’s publisher calls Barton the most famous twentieth-century American not to rate a biography—until now. This book may not have a chapter titled “It All Comes Back to Babes,” but it looks like a good read nonetheless.

—Posted by Tim Nudd