There's something sadly endearing about a newsmagazine celebrating itself these days, when you'd need to roll up at least a couple of its featherweight copies to effectively swat an average-size fly. "Time: The Illustrated History of the World's Most Influential Magazine" often has the tone of a man at a bar, or perhaps on his deathbed, insisting that he once steered the planet through the stars. Or still does! The book "meticulously documents how Time mirrored and shaped events, and shows, once again, that we not only mark history, we make it too." That's managing editor Richard Stengel in the preface, where he also claims that "the twentieth century—and now the twenty-first—would not be the same without Time." Early on we encounter founder Henry Luce's prospectus—"now considered a historical document"—asserting that Time would be less interested in "how much it includes between its covers" than in "how much it gets off its pages into the minds of its readers." Even readers whose minds have remained i mpervious to the magazine's often gaseous prose are likely to relish many of the book's 600 or so captivating photographs and illustrations, starting with Pope John Paul II praying at the Western Wall in 2000. We see plenty of Kennedys in full dental glory; a fetching 17-year-old Elizabeth Taylor; a "Thriller"-era Warhol cover portrait of Michael Jackson; and a bevy of wartime photos, from a stirring aerial shot of the D-Day beachhead to the indelible Vietnam War image of the South Vietnamese national police chief executing a suspected Vietcong guerrilla. The epic photograph of the lone Tiananmen Square protester staring down a tank column can still take your breath away. The book includes paeans to its "Man of the Year" feature and some of its trend-catching covers, including "Is God Dead?" (1966) followed in 1972 with "The Occult Revival: Satan Returns." The top 10 best-selling issues remind us that mayhem and death definitely move product. The 9/11 attacks hold the top two slots, and deceased celebrities Princess Diana and John Lennon make the list. No quips here about the death of Time someday making the magazine's own cover, even if this book does have the size and heft of a small tombstone. After all, that other newsmagazine is the one that's up for sale. —Dave Shiflett Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page W8
