The twilight of the American enlightenment: the 1950s and the crisis of liberal belief

by Marsden, George M.

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Title Statements

Full title :The twilight of the American enlightenment : the 1950s and the crisis of liberal belief / George M. Marsden.

Summary

"In The Twilight of the American Enlightenment, Bancroft Prize-winning historian George Marsden examines the faltering attempts by the country's brightest minds to establish a new national identity and purpose for postwar America, and explains how their efforts ... and eventual failure ... helped to shape the society we live in today. As Marsden shows, the nation's challenges heavily influenced political debates and American art during the 1950s. Playwrights and novelists in particular reflected on the simultaneous conformity and alienation of modern man, with authors such as Dwight MacDonald and James Baldwin lamenting the new "mass man," whom mass media had robbed of all individualism. So too did sociologists Erich Fromm and David Riesman, whose idea of a "lonely crowd" seemed to sum up the inauthenticity of mainstream America. Political philosophers including Walter Lippmann, meanwhile, feared that the pragmatism of thinkers such as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and Daniel Bell ... who rejected wholesale ideologies in favor of a relativistic, selective politics ... had left the nation directionless at a crucial moment in American history."

Edition Statements

Publication Date:2014.

Publication Statements

Publisher(s):Basic Books
Place of Publication:New York
Language:eng
Publication Date:2014.

The Physical Object

Description:XXXIX, 219 Seiten

Edition Identifiers

ISBN:9780465030101, 0465030106, 9780465069774, 0465069770
oclc:ocn897743138
LC Classification:E169.12
Dewey Decimal:973.91

Subjects

Aliénation (Psychologie sociale) -- His… Alienation (Social psychology) Alienation (Social psychology) -- Histo… Civilization Cold War -- Social aspects -- United St… Etats-Unis -- Civilisation -- 1945- . États-Unis -- Conditions sociales -- 19… Gesellschaft Group identity Group identity -- History -- 20th centu… Guerre froide -- Aspect social -- États… History HISTORY -- bisacsh. -- 20th Century -- … HISTORY -- Modern -- 20th Century Identité collective -- Histoire -- 20e … POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Political Ideologi… RELIGION -- Religion, Politics et State Since 1900 Social aspects Social conditions