The Twilight of the American Enlightenment

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States stood ata precipice. The forces of modernity unleashed by the war had led toastonishing advances in daily life, but technology and mass culture alsothreatened to erode the country's traditional moral character. As award-winninghistorian George M. Marsden explains in The Twilight of the AmericanEnlightenment, postwar Americans looked to the country's secular liberalelites for guidance in this precarious time, but these intellectuals provedunable to articulate a coherent common cause by which America could chart itscourse. Their failure lost them the faith of their constituents, paving the wayfor a Christian revival that offered America a firm new moral vision-one rootedin the Protestant values of the founders.A groundbreaking reappraisal of the country's spiritualreawakening, The Twilight of the American Enlightenment shows howAmerica found new purpose at the dawn of the Cold War.