Tarpley Hitt

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 favour of Mattel's preferred version of history....