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Thompson, Edward K. A Love Affair with Life & Smithsonian. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1995. 305 pp. $26.95.
More than a third of all American homes subscribed to Life in the late 1940s, with millions more reading the magazine as it was passed along each week. The soaring popularity of this mass-circulation picture magazine coincided with the ascension of Edward K. Thompson into the managing editorship, allowing him to shine professionally during the magazine's greatest period.
Thompson has been described as both brilliant and tough, but fellow Life editor Loudon Wainwright points out in his history of the magazine that Thompson did not make a stunning first impression. "There was a doughy quality about Thompson. He appeared slightly underdone. . . a poor souffle in the act of...