Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a new American cultural phenomenon—one that is at odds with our heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern, secular knowledge and science. With mordant wit, Jacoby surveys an antirationalist landscape extending from pop culture to a pseudo-intellectual universe of "junk thought." Disdain for logic and evidence defines a pervasive malaise fostered by the...

A look back at the 1950s chronicles the tensions and innovations that lay behind the decade's more placid surface during a time of prosperity and contradiction.

"The story of the making of a colossal, star-studded, multimillion-dollar superhero action film...and the humble comic book that inspired it. PART ONE of this story takes place in 1947. A troubled soldier, returning from the war, meets his talented five-year-old nephew, leaves an indelible impression, and then disappears for 23 years. Cut to 1970: The nephew, now drawing underground comic books in Oakland, California, reconnects with his uncle and,...

Overview: For many, the moon landing was the defining event of the twentieth century. So it seems only fitting that Norman Mailer-the literary provocateur who altered the landscape of American nonfiction-wrote the most wide-ranging, far-seeing chronicle of the Apollo 11 mission. A classic chronicle of America's reach for greatness in the midst of the Cold War, Of a Fire on the Moon compiles the reportage Mailer published between 1969 and 1970 in...

"In a culture trapped in the present tense, how can we keep the past from disappearing? When we lose sight of the past, our ability to understand ourselves on both a national and personal level is inhibited. While exploring the darker constants in modern American life - violence, militarization, rapid technological change, inability to be truly attentive - and the disorientation these elements induce, Colette Brooks examines how the past disappears...

"Wherever we live, however we do so, we desperately need a prophet of responsibility; and although the days of the prophets seem past to many of us, Berry may be the closest to one we have. But, fortunately, he is also a poet of responsibility. He makes one believe that the good life may not only be harder than what we're used to but sweeter as well." -The New York Review of Books In Home Economics, Berry explores this process and continues to discuss...

A vast cultural movement is emerging from outside the Western world. Truly global in its range and allure, it is the biggest challenge yet to Hollywood, McDonald's, blue jeans, and other aspects of American mass-produced popular culture. This is a book about the new arbiters of mass culture -India's Bollywood films, Turkey's soap operas, or dizi, and South Korea's pop music. Carefully packaging not always secular modernity, combined with traditional...

"While it may be catnip for the media to play up America as a has-been, Josef Joffe, a ... German commentator and Stanford University academic, [proposes] that Declinism is not a cold-eyed diagnosis but a device in the style of the ancient prophets ... Gloom is a prophecy that must be believed so that it will turn out wrong. Joffe [posits that] 'economic miracles' that propelled the rising tide of challengers flounder against their own limits. Hardly...