[NJ/NY], [Prentice Hall/Henry Holt], [1973-1989]. Four books by Key, beginning with his revelatory volume Subliminal Seduction [Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1973], which managed to convince a wide swath of 1970s America that it was being manipulated by sexual words and imagery deviously distributed, including within the images of ice cubes in magazine liquor advertisements, among many other places. From there, Key published Media Sexploitation [Prentice-Hall, 1976]; The Clam-Plate Orgy [Prentice-Hall, 1980]; and The Age of Manipulation [NY: Henry Holt, 1989], all variations on the theme of how the media consciously manipulate consumers' subconscious thoughts and behaviors. The first volume has an introduction by Marshall McLuhan, a colleague and friend of Key. Key's thesis was proposed as a corrective to the primary emphasis placed on Marketing by 20th century business culture -- that is, on the need to persuade consumers to select a given product out of an array of options. If the details he cited as examples were not always correct, there was no question that the use of marketing techniques had often crossed ethical lines and been exploitative, as it often continues to be. The first two titles are price-clipped; Media Sexploitation is very good in a very good dust jacket; the three other titles are near fine in near fine dust jackets. [#035010] $1,200