Jewish Mad Men: Advertising and the Design of the American Jewish Experience

By Kerri P. Steinberg

It is easy to dismiss advertising as simply the background chatter of modern life, often annoying, sometimes hilarious, and ultimately meaningless. But Kerri P. Steinberg argues that a careful study of the history of advertising can reveal a wealth of insight into a culture. In Jewish Mad Men, Steinberg looks specifically at how advertising helped shape the evolution of American Jewish life and culture over the past one hundred years.  
Drawing on case studies of famous advertising campaigns—from Levy’s Rye Bread (“You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s”) to Hebrew National hot dogs (“We answer to a higher authority”)—Steinberg examines advertisements from the late nineteenth-century in New York, the center of advertising in the United States, to trace changes in Jewish life there and across the entire country. She looks at ads aimed at the immigrant population, at suburbanites in midcentury, and at hipster and post-denominational Jews today. 
In addition to discussing campaigns for everything from Manischewitz wine to matzoh, Jewish Mad Men also portrays the legendary Jewish figures in advertising—like Albert Lasker and Bill Bernbach—and lesser known “Mad Men” like Joseph Jacobs, whose pioneering agency created the brilliantly successful Maxwell House Coffee Haggadah. Throughout, Steinberg uses the lens of advertising to illuminate the Jewish trajectory from outsider to insider, and the related arc of immigration, acculturation, upward mobility, and suburbanization.
Anchored in the illustrations, photographs, jingles, and taglines of advertising, Jewish Mad Men features a dozen color advertisements and many black-and-white images. Lively and insightful, this book offers a unique look at both advertising and Jewish life in the United States.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Release date: Feb 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9780813573878

Book preview

JEWISH MAD MEN

JEWISH MAD MEN

Advertising and the Design of the American Jewish Experience

KERRI P. STEINBERG

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS

New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Steinberg, Kerri P., 1959– author.

Jewish mad men : advertising and the design of the American Jewish experience / Kerri P. Steinberg.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978–0–8135–6376–3 (hardback) — ISBN 978–0–8135–6375–6 (pbk.) — ISBN 978–0–8135–6377–0 (e-book)

1. Jews in advertising. 2. Advertising—United States—History. 3. Advertising—Social aspects—United States. 4. United States—Ethnic relations. I. Title.

HF5813.U6S748 2015

659.1089'924073—dc23

2014014283

A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Copyright © 2015 by Kerri P. Steinberg

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is fair use as defined by U.S. copyright law.

Visit our website: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu

Manufactured in the United States of America

For Howard

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: More than Advertising

1. Portrait of American Jewish Life

2. The Spaces and Places of Jewish Advertising: Joseph Jacobs and Market Segmentation

3. Manischewitz and Maxwell House: The M&M of Jewish Advertising

4. You Say You Want a Revolution: The Mainstreaming of Jewish Identity in American Advertising

5. Matchmaker, Matchmaker: JDating in the Digital Age

Conclusion: More than a Mirror

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Illustrations

Color Plates

1. At Grandmother’s booklet in Yiddish, New York, 1924

2. Double-page spread featuring array of JELL-O molds, At Grandmother’s booklet in Yiddish, New York, 1924

3. Illustration depicting young boy making room for JELL-O wrapped box on furniture, At Grandmother’s booklet in Yiddish, New York, 1924

4. Front cover of The Lowest Cost Admission to the World’s Richest Market booklet, New York, 1946

5. Honoring 1776 and Famous Jews in American History, 1975

6. Manischewitz Cook-Off advertisement, Cooking Light, 2006

7. Adam Rolston, Manischewitz American Matzos, 1993, painting

8. Manischewitz wine, There’s a Seder in Every Bottle, 1999

9. Manischewitz wine, To all a good light, 1998

10. Choirboy, You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye, Howard Zieff, photographer, New York, 1967

11. End Bad Breath, 1967

12. Stephanie and Avi JDate billboard, Times Square, New York, 2006

Black-and-White Figures

1. El Al airlines advertisement, Doyle Dane Bernbach, 1967

2. Kosher for Passover Rokeach Scouring Powder advertisement, the Forward, March 18, 1925

3. Ad for Cascarets patent medicine, Los Angeles, B’nai B’rith Messenger, March 23, 1900

4. Syrup of Figs patent medicine ad, Los Angeles, B’nai B’rith Messenger, 1900

5. For a Man’s Easter Wearing, Los Angeles, B’nai B’rith Messenger, April 10, 1925

6. Advertisement for a gas water heater, Cincinnati, the American Israelite, July 27, 1933

7. Crisco shortening New Year’s greeting, the American Israelite, September 21, 1933

8. Cover of the Jewish Herald-Voice, Houston, April 11, 1945

9. General Electric advertisement, Cincinnati, the American Israelite, March 3, 1955

10. Saving lives—still our Goal, Los Angeles, B’nai B’rith Messenger, March 26, 1965

11. General George Washington Lunching at the Home of Orthodox Corporal Michael Hart in Easton, Pennsylvania, on December 21, 1778, Los Angeles, B’nai B’rith Messenger, March 14, 1975

12. The Month of Redemption for Ethiopian Jews Is Here, Cincinnati, the American Israelite, March 21, 1985

13. Why is this Passover different? Cincinnati, the American Israelite, April 4, 1985

14. The Jewish Market booklet, 1940

15. Tales and Legends of Israel, front page, The JELL-O Company, Inc., 1933

16. Double-page spread with JELL-O ad and introduction to the Tales and Legends of Israel booklet, The JELL-O Company, Inc., 1933

17. Double-page spread with Bond Bread advertisement and introduction to The Biblical Picture Gallery, 1937

18. Moses Appoints Joshua As His Successor and Moses on Mount Neboh, pen-and-ink drawings and accompanying captions in The Biblical Picture Gallery, 1937

19. Ad for Chun King Frozen Dinners & Entrees and the Joey Adams Show on WEVD, 1960s

20. Ad for Pertussin cough syrup and the Ruth Jacobs Show on WEVD, 1960s

21. Double-page spread, The Most Unique Sales Opportunity in the World, The Lowest Cost Admission to the World’s Richest Market booklet, New York, 1946

22. Photograph of the Jewish housewife and accompanying caption, The Lowest Cost Admission to the World’s Richest Market booklet, New York, 1946

23. Kosher seals and emblems in What Every Manufacturer Should Know About Kosher pamphlet, 1955

24. Whitney’s Yogurt ad, Hadassah Magazine, 1994

25. Maxwell House Coffee illustrated ad, the Forward, March 9, 1922

26. Maxwell House Coffee illustrated ad, the Forward, March 16, 1922

27. Gold Medal Flour illustrated ad, the Forward, March 5, 1922

28. Maxwell House Coffee illustrated ad, Saturday Evening Post, April 28, 1923

29. Original Maxwell House Coffee Passover haggadah, 1934

30. Early Manischewitz matzo ad, the Forward, March 31, 1922

31. Maxwell House Coffee Passover haggadah, Ten Plagues illustration, 1965

32. Maxwell House Coffee illustrated ad, 1960

33. Maxwell House Coffee haggadah advertisement, 2000

34. Manischewitz Wine ad, We’ve Been at Your Holiday Table for Years . . . Take Us Out More Often, 2001

35. Photograph of President Obama conducting Seder using Maxwell House Coffee haggadah, April 2009

36. Levy’s illustrated ad, Are you buying a bread or a bed? New York Times, January 19, 1953

37. Levy’s illustrated ad, All Right Already . . . tomorrow, I’ll have it for you! New York Times, September 30, 1954

38. Policeman, You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye, Howard Zieff, photographer, New York, 1967

39. American Indian, You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye, Howard Zieff, photographer, New York, 1967

40. Asian American, You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy’s Real Jewish Rye, Howard Zieff, photographer, New York, 1967

41. Uncle Sam images from We Answer to a Higher Authority television commercial, 1972

42. JDate logo

43. JBaby Benjamin, JDate advertisement, 2010

44. Jennifer and Michael’s JFamily, JDate advertisement, 2010

45. Stefanie and Ethan, JDate advertisement, 2011

46. Cover page of Grande Soy Vanilla Latte with Cinnamon, No Foam . . . Jewish Identity and Community in a Time of Unlimited Choices, Reboot study, 2006

Acknowledgments

Ballyhoo, yet brilliant, advertising has entertained and elucidated, as it has obscured and intimidated the various publics who have succumbed to its spell. Wrestling with this conundrum over the past five years has been alternately rewarding and frustrating, but always eye-opening. Examining American Jewish life through the lens of advertising has enabled me to see the challenges and triumphs of American Jews. Most meaningfully, it has given me a deeper regard for the lost worlds of my grandparents and great grandparents. Researching and writing this book facilitated a visceral connection across time and space; American Jewish history came to life in my imagination, and I was enraptured. Advertising was both muse and medium, so to it, I am grateful. Yet, to claim that Jewish Mad Men sufficiently seizes even a single frame in the ongoing saga of the American Jewish experience would be overblown, because this story is so intricate, complex, and multivalent. On a more micro level, however, a flurry of personal, professional, and communal concerns that have shaped my life over the past five years converge in this book, imbuing its completion with extraordinary personal satisfaction.

This project would have never seen the light of day were it not for the unstinting encouragement and support of Joseph Jacobs Advertising in New York. I first met the late David Koch, former president of the agency, in 2006 in my quest to uncover advertising materials on Manischewitz products for a talk at the Modern Language Association. When David made available the archives of Joseph Jacobs Advertising, I immediately knew that I had stumbled onto a gold mine. David facilitated my introduction to Richard (Dick) Jacobs, Joseph Jacobs’s son and long-time CEO of the company. I was privileged to interview Dick before his passing in 2011. My conversations with the dynamic David and Dick duo resulted in a transcription of the institutional history of Joseph Jacobs Advertising. I am content that Jewish Mad Men preserves for posterity the story of this agency, whose history coincides with and chronicles trends in American Jewish life over the past ninety-five years. Elie Rosenfeld, current CEO at Joseph Jacobs Advertising, has been unwavering in his support of this project. His generosity in reviewing my chapter on the organization, and providing continued access to archival materials allowed me to complete the work after Dick’s and David’s deaths. Elie has also served as a valued sounding board.

Two Faculty Development Grants from Otis College of Art and Design, my home away from home, in the summer of 2006, and the summer of 2010, supported both initial and follow up research in New York. I am especially grateful to Debra Ballard and Parme Giuntini, the chair and assistant chair of the Department of Liberal Studies, for accommodating my schedule to facilitate completion of the book. Heather Cleary and Derek McMullen of the Visual Resources Center at Otis College, provided invaluable assistance in preparing digital image files for Rutgers University Press. The interest that all of my Otis colleagues—both in my home Department of Liberal Studies, and in the studio departments—have taken in this project has provided a steady source of energy and support, both necessary to see the book through its completion. I consider myself so fortunate to work in such a vibrant intellectual and creative community.

A grant from the Posen Foundation to participate in the Varieties of Jewish Secularism and Secularization, seminar at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley during summer 2010, helped me work through the history and historiography of Jewish secularism. I would like to express my gratitude to David Biale, Naomi Seidman, and Susan Shapiro for facilitating the seminar, and to my colleagues in the seminar for their close reading and analysis of a preliminary version of the chapter on Manischewitz and Maxwell House. Conversations with my constellation of personal friends/colleagues illuminated my pathway, and helped me to see the light at the end of a long tunnel. I would like to express special affection to Ruth Iskin and Carol Bakhos who read earlier versions of chapters. Their cumulative wisdom and keen insights pushed me to delve deeper into issues of Jewish history and representation. Extended discussions with Tobin Belzer opened my mind to changes in American Jewish communal life, and to the value of experiential Judaism. Diana Linden’s unwavering support of this project has meant more than she can possibly know. Always availing herself to my work, sending useful sources my way, and extending her astute understanding of American Jewish visual culture to this project, Diana’s friendship and generosity have inspired me, and interrupted this long process with welcome laughter.

I wish to thank my students, especially those in the Communication Arts Department at Otis College of Art and Design, for humoring me and giving me the opportunity to share with them my passion for the history of graphic design and advertising. My former MFA graphic design student, Sam Siavash Anvari, who worked as a junior designer at JDate, was instrumental in opening doors at the company. I would also like to express my gratitude to Arielle Schechtman, Senior Manager of Public and Community Relations at JDate. com for reviewing my chapter on JDate, and providing access to their images. My sincere thanks to David Nimmer for his counsel on copyright law issues, and to Rachel Friedman for her close reading of the manuscript.

Working with Leslie Mitchner, associate director and editor-in-chief at Rutgers University Press, the past several years has been both an honor and a privilege. From beginning to end, Leslie’s belief in and stewardship of this project encouraged me to surmount the inevitable travails that accompany a sustained effort of this nature. Her guidance and wisdom have taught me so much about writing, and live on through the recommendations I now make to my students. I was also so fortunate to meet Simone Krug at the Yale Graduation Ball in 2008. Little did we know in that brief encounter that we were about to embark upon a research and outreach journey that would span both years and continents. Simone, in the beginning you were my research assistant, and now you are my friend. For your many talents, and for your dedication to this project through its duration, I wish to express my sincere appreciation.

I am one of those most fortunate individuals whose parents would follow them to the end of the earth, and so it has been with this project, as it been throughout my entire life. I wish to thank my mother, Linda Platt, for assisting me with research at the New York Public Library. Both my mother and father, Shearn Platt, read portions of the manuscript and offered thoughtful feedback. In addition to providing unconditional love and support, I remain inspired by my parents’ commitment to arts and culture—both Jewish and otherwise—and by their exemplary service to the organized Jewish community.

My dear children, Andrew, Ross, Joel, Maya, Sidney, and Zachary, keep me grounded, move me to open my eyes, and give me perspective. Thank you for listening to me drone on about advertising and American Jews until your eyes glazed over. A special thanks to Andrew for reading several chapters and offering a valued perspective on Jewish life both historically and at present, in America and abroad. All six of you help me with the hip factor—a necessity for any book on the topic of advertising and pop culture. From A to Z, so divergent are you in your passions, personalities, and abilities that food metaphors most aptly cover your delicious spectrum: you are a wondrous fruit medley, a sweet and savory salad, a most extravagant desert buffet. Individually and collectively, you delight my senses and fill my heart. I am breathless.

Finally, to my husband, Howard, whose patience, reassurance, guidance, and wisdom constitute the pillars of my existence. In my mind, you are decorated with every medal of honor, but none more meaningful than your dedication as my lifelong partner and soulmate. Just as the magical essence of our children takes my breath away, your devotion allows me to reach new heights and soar. As a token of my eternal gratitude, I dedicate this book to you.

JEWISH MAD MEN

FIGURE 1. El Al airlines advertisement, Doyle Dane Bernbach, 1967 • The altered face of the flight attendant emphasizes her painted-on smile. This quirky advertisement positions El Al as an airline that genuinely cares about its passengers. Use of the unexpected became a hallmark of Doyle Dane Bernbach advertising in the 1960s. • El Al Israel Airlines.

Introduction

More than Advertising

In 1967, El Al airlines stunned viewers with its disarming advertisement featuring an attractive flight attendant. The headline announced, Maybe You Don’t Want to Look at a Painted-on Smile All the Way to Europe (see figure 1). A heavy black line delineated the woman’s lips, extended across her face, and concluded in short, upright curved strokes that framed her cheeks and likened her to a clown. Cleverly alluding to the body and wingspan of an airplane seen head-on, the ad was playful, yet also sober. Pronounced rounded contours seen in the sweep of the attendant’s cap on the left side of her face, the arc of her hairline on the right, the arch of her eyebrows and wide eyes, and the exaggerated curves of her lips, underscored the ad’s lightheartedness. El Al was distinguished as the airline of authenticity whose engines should turn on at the flick of the switch, not its stewardesses. This claim alluded to the superficiality and artificiality commonly associated with airline attendants, and suggested to prospective passengers that they could expect better service. The quirky ad for the Israeli airline used the rebellious spirit of the late sixties to capture the novelty and enthusiasm of travel to Israel. It also redirected travel to the Jewish homeland away from the provincial and religious. Instead, the ad hinted that El Al—the official airline of Israel—offered passage to a modern Jewish state, connecting visitors to a country invested in contemporary fashion, advertising, and culture.

Like other media and material culture more generally, each ad tells a story. When examined under scrutiny, advertising comments on the priorities of the present, and also sometimes affords viewers a glimpse into bygone times. Certainly, the veiled objective of an ad is to persuade viewers to buy a product or an idea. For this reason, many are loath to take advertising seriously, especially in an era where we are inundated with sales pitches from the minute we boot up our electronic devices in the morning until we shut down at day’s end. Yet, it is precisely because of its ubiquitous presence and influence that we must heed advertising. Media theorists such as Sut Jhally and Noam Chomsky have expressed misgivings about advertising. Both view it from a Marxist point of view, as a mechanism of exploitation of the masses by those in power. Jhally claims that advertising works in a closed circle, delivering images of what people think they want based upon what it sells. Many of these images are tied to family, friendship, and community. Curiously, Jhally suggests that the vision or fantasy proffered by much advertising more closely resembles socialism rather than capitalism.¹ Through the lens of advertising it often seems that accessibility to goods is for the many rather than the privileged few. Additionally, when products are associated with family and community, it is easy to overlook advertising as an underlying profit-driven enterprise. Even if cynicism is warranted and healthy when deciphering the codes and objectives of advertising, hidden within advertisements are critical historical, cultural, and sociological lessons concerning race, gender, and identity.

Our El Al example offers a perfect case in point. What lies buried beneath that painted-on smile? We can begin our inquiry by situating the ad within the socio-political milieu of the year it was created. For Jews worldwide, and especially for American Jews, 1967 represented a renaissance of Jewish attachment. Whether a compensatory reflex to the Jewish genocide of World War II, or in response to the defiant mood of the 1960s, Israel’s Six Day War against the much larger countries of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in June 1967 caused American Jews to awaken from years of quiet resolve to support the young Jewish state. The threat of Israel’s annihilation prompted a renewed and unswerving recommitment of many American Jews to the Jewish homeland; the country’s subsequent triumph over neighboring Arab states secured the identification and commitment of Jews in America to this emerging regional superpower. The overwhelming sense of pride experienced by American Jews at that moment encouraged a psychological shift from self-conscious to self-assertive minority. Now the concept of the willful sabra (native-born Israeli) trumped that of the weak and powerless Eastern European Jewish nebbish (misfit). Travel to Israel in the aftermath of the Six Day War supported the economy of this developing nation while simultaneously rooting American Jews in a two-thousand-year-old history and vibrant culture. For the first time, many Jews understood themselves as part of an extraordinary Jewish continuum.

The painted-on smile was not the first time that an unspoiled image had been defaced. Back in 1912, Marcel Duchamp drew a moustache and goatee on a reproduction of the Mona Lisa, inviting viewers to look again at Leonardo da Vinci’s smiling icon. Disrupting an image and making something unfamiliar out of the familiar is a sure way to get observers to take a second look. In 1966, the Deconstructivist philosopher Jacques Derrida wrote that the act of disturbing a text (written or visual) would remind readers that it was merely an arrangement of marks and grammatical syntax. Through this recognition, Derrida aspired to make critical thinkers out of readers, so that they would not take what they saw or read at face value. René Magritte did something similar in 1927 when he pictured a pipe, and then informed readers below, Ceci n’est pas une pipe (This is not a pipe). The image of the pipe was not to be confused with an actual pipe. Even if representation is artificially constructed, as these examples attest, the attitudes embodied within these texts still open a window onto their times.

El Al’s painted-on smile brings us face to face with the creative revolution in advertising in the late sixties, attributed to the audacious practices of the Doyle Dane Bernbach advertising agency. Doyle Dane Bernbach opened its doors in 1949. An outsider to the gentile Madison Avenue inner circle, copywriter Bill Bernbach used his exceptionality as both a Jew and a creative trendsetter to set new industry standards. Under the creative direction of Bernbach, Doyle Dane Bernbach launched a legendary advertising revolution, to which most of today’s memorable advertising is indebted. Capitalizing on the rebellious mood of the sixties, thanks to divisions over Vietnam and civil rights, Bernbach in turn created revolutionary ads.

The abundance and intrusiveness of advertising in our daily lives makes it easily dismissible. Beyond the point of sale, however, the best examples of advertising, like the best examples of other media, are a mirror of the creators and consumers of advertising and their culture. The El Al painted-on smile advertisement instructs us about the revolutionary sixties—both in America and in Israel—the coinciding creative revolution in advertising and the ascendance of American Jews. Beyond this, the ad also sardonically comments on stereotypes and raises questions about gender and the subservience of women in servile professional and domestic roles during a time of social insurrection and the beginning of the feminist movement.

The Jewish trajectory from outsider to insider, and the concomitant experiences of immigration, acculturation, social-economic upward mobility, and suburbanization have been recounted across various media: film, theater, literature, television, and the fine arts. They have also been the topic of numerous academic studies in anthropology, sociology, history, and cultural history. Yet, the advertisements aimed at the immigrant population in the late nineteenth century, then at suburbanites in the mid-twentieth century, and now at hipster and post-denominational Jews have never served as more than a passing reference in the aforementioned fields. From Yiddish to English, and from the Lower East Side to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and even to the Moon where astronaut Gene Cernan symbolically took the Manischewitz brand in 1969, this book follows advertising that documents Jewish concerns, trends, and attitudes. It aims to bring out of invisibility the innuendos and inconsistencies that defined the American Jewish experience in the twentieth century. It charts an inverted trajectory of Jewish advertising in America, whose beginnings endeavored to lure traditional Jews outside into the modern marketplace of mainstream abundance, while these days, much Jewish advertising aims to lure wandering American Jewish identities back to Jewish tradition.

Just like film, theater, and music, advertising too—whether in early twentieth-century Yiddish publications, late twentieth-century general interest publications, or billboards in Times Square—has constituted an important expression of popular culture, suggesting new possibilities for Jews in America, and helping them to reimagine their lives. Ads reference how Jews both absorbed and influenced the broader history and culture of America. We cannot fully understand their acculturation, accommodation, and navigation process over the past one hundred years without exploring advertising, an undervalued field of inquiry. Just as Jews left an indelible mark on the field, advertising likewise shaped the experiences of Jews, simultaneously accelerating integration into America, yet reinforcing their uniqueness.

On Design and Advertising

"We are becoming more and more a designed and a designing society, wrote the historian Clive Dilnot in his two-part essay on The State of Design History," published in 1984.² Dilnot’s careful word choice redirected the concept of design from noun to adjective and verb. Steering his readers toward the power and influence exercised by design, Dilnot declared, "Both an understanding of design and its public communication are not only necessary professional demands, but also urgent social needs.³ He inserted design into a social context and asserted that the social is not external to the activity, but internal to it and determining of its essential features."⁴ Dilnot attempted to guide design away from a superficial preoccupation with style, taste, and fashion, and toward the gravity of the humanities, science, social science, and global markets. In so doing, he ascribed intentionality to design as a practice that shapes society. His pathbreaking work advocated for design’s authority.

In 2002, William McDonough, architect and a pioneer of cradle-to-cradle sustainability, shifted Dilnot’s focus from the broader society to the individual, claiming that design reflects the first signal of human intention.⁵ Even the most stripped-down, objective-appearing design is never neutral, but always has an agenda. Consider the well-known Chase Manhattan Bank logo, created by the New York–based firm Chermayeff and Geismar in 1961. Defined by four blue trapezoids surrounding an empty square in the center, the exterior of the logo completes the shape of an octagon. The heavy blue wedge forms that identify the logo, though abstract, emphasize solidity and stability, reassuring clients that Chase Manhattan is a safe bet for their banking needs. Promoting an awareness of design as a verb associated with agency, activism, and systematization alongside its customary recognition as a noun, these theorists highlight the inevitable intersection between design and human practices, policies, and ideas. Dilnot’s and McDonough’s texts, in fact, encourage an understanding of society, culture, history, and politics as a grand design.

Regardless of whether a society is communist or capitalist,