Editors themselves rarely attract more attention than their news headlines, but Henry Luce's success in the field of magazine publishing made him a legend in his own lifetime, and an enduring influence beyond it. The corporation he founded, Time Inc., has been described as the third most important institution in the United States, after the President and Congress, and his magazines have been estimated to reach one quarter of the entire population of the United States. Luce's constant articulation of and fight for "America" and its values, visually and verbally, personally and corporately, throughout his life (and particularly in the politically and culturally charged years of the Cold War) ensured that his impact went far beyond mere journalism, and established him within the canon of influential American public figures.

All this lay far in the future for the child born Henry Robinson Luce on...