The Twilight of the American Enlightenment: The 1950s and the Crisis of Liberal Belief

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States stood at a precipice. The forces of modernity unleashed by the war had led to astonishing advances in daily life, but technology and mass culture also threatened to erode the country€s traditional moral character. As award-winning historian George M. Marsden explains in [Title TK], postwar Americans looked to the country€s secular, liberal elites for guidance in this precarious time, but these intellectuals proved unable to articulate a coherent common cause by which America could chart its course. Their failure lost them the faith of their constituents, paving the way for a Christian revival that offered America a firm new moral vision-one rooted in the Protestant values of the founders.

A groundbreaking reappraisal of the country€s spiritual reawakening, [Title TK] shows how America found new purpose at the dawn of the Cold War.