Barbieland: The Unauthorized History

“A rollicking tale of how Mattel spied, copied, and stole its way to market dominance, then fought with military intensity to compel us to buy more and more.” —The New York Times The secret history of Barbie and what Mattel has done to keep her on top. For nearly seven decades, Mattel billed Barbie as the first adult doll—a revolutionary alternative to the baby dolls before her, which had treated little girls as future mothers rather than future women. But Barbie was no original. She was a knockoff: a nearly identical copy of a German doll now erased from the narrative in favor of Mattel’s preferred version of history. It was Barbie’s first secret but far from her last. In Barbieland, journalist and The Drift editor Tarpley Hitt exposes the long-hidden backstory of the world’s most famous doll.