Joshua Reichard’s Reviews > The Twilight of the American Enlightenment: The 1950s and the Crisis of Liberal Belief > Status Update

I’d be interested in your thoughts on this one, too, Marsden is a really interesting scholar

Yeah, so I just finished a few days ago. I thought it was overall helpful. Basically, Marsden is writing about the American culture in the 1950s, particularly how groups of intellectuals influenced the public arena. Guys, I actually don't know much about Henry Luce and Reinhold Niebuhr. Either way, he suggests men like them were asking the question if TV is dominating the culture and the Americans merely want to be entertained and buy all the items they can afford how will the Western world move forward without totalitarian authority taking over. So in other words he compares how the intellectuals of the 1950s saw our entertainment as wrong and were driving Western culture to the dirt. Whereas the intellectuals of today are content watching the world entertain themselves to death. I could say more but overall the book was helpful I think he fails to move from ideas to action though. Marsden never really explains how society addresses the challenges of entertainment and consumerism. He merely states Christians should have a public voice like the rest of the world. I would suggest you read it but if you are familiar with this type of writing it may bore you.