美国历史学家李尔斯在《丰裕的寓言》一书中,创造性地将宗教与广告两个看似不 相干事物联系在一起,提供了关于对于美国广告文化史滥觞期的一种新教伦理的阐释视 角,并提出以下问题:现代广告文化为何能够在美国这样一个由清教徒建立的国家生根 发芽?宗教文化在哪些层面潜移默化地渗透进了广告业?广告业又反过来在多大程度上 影响了美国宗教的世俗化?对于这些问题的回答,既是对马克斯·韦伯的逻辑的发展, 又是对于广告史研究向着宗教文化的深层次的延伸。同时,李尔斯作为历史学者、文化 史家对于广告研究的积极介入,向我们展示了一种新的广告史——广告文化史研究的方 法及其可能性。

In Fables of Abundance, American historian Jackson Lears creatively linkes religion and advertising, the two seemingly unrelated things, and provides a Protestant ethic perspective about the origin of cultural history of advertising in America. He puts forward the following problems: Why can modern advertising culture born in the United States, a country established by the Puritan? In which level the advertising industry is deeply influenced by Religion culture? How can advertising industry leads to the secular of American religion? The answer to these questions is not only the logical development of Marx Webb, but also the extension of the research on the history of advertising to the level of religion. At the same time, as a history scholar and cultural historian, the active involvement of the advertising research by Jackson Lears provides us a new framework of advertising research, namely the cultural history research methods of advertising and its possibility.