And consider the relative cultural relevance of today's magazines and the historical ones you've chosen. For all the moaning about how we've lost a monoculture

And consider the relative cultural relevance of today's magazines and the historical ones you've chosen. For all the moaning about how we've lost a monoculture because we don't all watch the same TV channels, I think those people are too young to remember things like LIFE magazine, the big, unavoidable, pictorial shared American experience, never really breaking news but always showing us the zeitgeist in broad strokes. Today's magazines have niche or tabloid appeal at best.