The Twilight of American Culture

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Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 039307840X
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis The Twilight of American Culture by : Morris Berman

Download or read book The Twilight of American Culture written by Morris Berman and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2001-06-17 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An emerging cult classic about America's cultural meltdown—and a surprising solution. A prophetic examination of Western decline, The Twilight of American Culture provides one of the most caustic and surprising portraits of American society to date. Whether examining the corruption at the heart of modern politics, the "Rambification" of popular entertainment, or the collapse of our school systems, Morris Berman suspects that there is little we can do as a society to arrest the onset of corporate Mass Mind culture. Citing writers as diverse as de Toqueville and DeLillo, he cogently argues that cultural preservation is a matter of individual conscience, and discusses how classical learning might triumph over political correctness with the rise of a "a new monastic individual"—a person who, much like the medieval monk, is willing to retreat from conventional society in order to preserve its literary and historical treasures. "Brilliantly observant, deeply thoughtful ....lucidly argued."—Christian Science Monitor

Why America Failed

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Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1118087968
Total Pages : 193 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (18 download)

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Book Synopsis Why America Failed by : Morris Berman

Download or read book Why America Failed written by Morris Berman and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-09-13 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why America Failed shows how, from its birth as a nation of "hustlers" to its collapse as an empire, the tools of the country's expansion proved to be the instruments of its demise Why America Failed is the third and most engaging volume of Morris Berman's trilogy on the decline of the American empire. In The Twilight of American Culture, Berman examined the internal factors of that decline, showing that they were identical to those of Rome in its late-empire phase. In Dark Ages America, he explored the external factors—e.g., the fact that both empires were ultimately attacked from the outside—and the relationship between the events of 9/11 and the history of U.S. foreign policy. In his most ambitious work to date, Berman looks at the "why" of it all Probes America's commitment to economic liberalism and free enterprise stretching back to the late sixteenth century, and shows how this ideology, along with that of technological progress, rendered any alternative marginal to American history Maintains, more than anything else, that this one-sided vision of the country's purpose finally did our nation in Why America Failed is a controversial work, one that will shock, anger, and transform its readers. The book is a stimulating and provocative explanation of how we managed to wind up in our current situation: economically weak, politically passe, socially divided, and culturally adrift. It is a tour de force, a powerful conclusion to Berman's study of American imperial decline.

The Twilight of the American Enlightenment

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Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0465069770
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

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Book Synopsis The Twilight of the American Enlightenment by : George Marsden

Download or read book The Twilight of the American Enlightenment written by George Marsden and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2014-02-11 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 The Twilight of the American Enlightenment, 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, The Twilight of the American Enlightenment shows how America found new purpose at the dawn of the Cold War.

Twilight of the American Century

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Publisher : University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN 13 : 0268104883
Total Pages : 630 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (681 download)

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Book Synopsis Twilight of the American Century by : Andrew J. Bacevich

Download or read book Twilight of the American Century written by Andrew J. Bacevich and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 630 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Andrew Bacevich is a leading American public intellectual, writing in the fields of culture and politics with particular attention to war and America’s role in the world. Twilight of the American Century is a collection of his selected essays written since 9/11. In these essays, Bacevich critically examines the U.S. response to the events of September 2001, as they have played out in the years since, radically affecting the way Americans see themselves and their nation’s place in the world. Bacevich is the author of nearly a dozen books and contributes to a wide variety of publications, including Foreign Affairs, The Nation, Commonweal, Harper’s, and the London Review of Books. His op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, among other newspapers. Prior to becoming an academic, he was a professional soldier. His experience as an Army officer informs his abiding concern regarding the misuse of American military power and the shortcomings of the U.S. military system. As a historian, he has tried to see the past differently, thereby making it usable to the present. Bacevich combines the perspective of a scholar with the background of a practitioner. His views defy neat categorization as either liberal or conservative. He belongs to no “school.” His voice and his views are distinctive, provocative, and refreshing. Those with a focus on political and cultural developments and who have a critical interest in America's role in the world will be keenly interested in this book.

The Cultural Creatives

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Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0609808451
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (98 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cultural Creatives by : Paul H. Ray, Ph.D.

Download or read book The Cultural Creatives written by Paul H. Ray, Ph.D. and published by Crown. This book was released on 2001-10-02 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ARE YOU A CULTURAL CREATIVE? Do you dislike all the emphasis in modern culture on success and “making it,” on getting and spending, on wealth and luxury goods? Do you care deeply about the destruction of the environment and would pay higher taxes or prices to clean it up and to stop global warming? Are you unhappy with both the left and the right in politics and want to find a new way that does not simply steer a middle course? In this landmark book, sociologist Paul H. Ray and psychologist Sherry Ruth Anderson draw upon thirteen years of survey research studies on more than 100,000 Americans. They reveal who the Cultural Creatives are and the fascinating story of their emergence over the last generation, using vivid examples and engaging personal stories to describe their distinctive values and lifestyles. The Cultural Creatives offers a more hopeful future and prepares us all for a transition to a new, saner, and wiser culture.

American Cultural Studies

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134796927
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (347 download)

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Book Synopsis American Cultural Studies by : Neil C. Campbell

Download or read book American Cultural Studies written by Neil C. Campbell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-08-12 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on literature, art, film theatre, music and much more, American Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary introduction to American culture for those taking American Studies. This textbook: * introduces the full range and variety of American culture including issues of race, gender and youth * provides a truly interdisciplinary methodology * suggests and discusses a variety of approaches to study * highlights American distinctiveness * draws on literature, art, film, theatre, architecture, music and more * challenges orthodox paradigms of American Studies. This is a fast-expanding subject area, and Campbell and Kean's book will certainly be a staple part of any cultural studies student's reading diet.

The Twilight of Common Dreams

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Publisher : Holt Paperbacks
ISBN 13 : 9780805040913
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (49 download)

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Book Synopsis The Twilight of Common Dreams by : Todd Gitlin

Download or read book The Twilight of Common Dreams written by Todd Gitlin and published by Holt Paperbacks. This book was released on 1996-11-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 1995

Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire

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Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393078310
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire by : Morris Berman

Download or read book Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire written by Morris Berman and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-02-07 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Dark Ages America, the pundit Morris Berman argues that the nation has entered a dangerous phase in its historical development from which there is no return. As the corporate-consumerist juggernaut that now defines the nation rolls on, the very factors that once propelled America to greatness—extreme individualism, territorial and economic expansion, and the pursuit of material wealth—are, paradoxically, the nails in our collective coffin. Within a few decades, Berman argues, the United States will be marginalized on the world stage, its hegemony replaced by China or the European Union. With the United States just one terrorist attack away from a police state, Berman's book is a controversial and illuminating look at our current society and its ills.

Not Hollywood

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Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 0822354268
Total Pages : 349 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (223 download)

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Book Synopsis Not Hollywood by : Sherry B. Ortner

Download or read book Not Hollywood written by Sherry B. Ortner and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-27 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The pioneering anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner combines her trademark ethnographic expertise with critical film interpretation to explore the independent film scene in New York and Los Angeles since the late 1980s. Not Hollywood is both a study of the lived experience of that scene and a critical examination of America as seen through the lenses of independent filmmakers. Based on interviews with scores of directors and producers, Ortner reveals the culture and practices of indie filmmaking, including the conviction of those involved that their films, unlike Hollywood movies, are "telling the truth" about American life. These films often illuminate the dark side of American society through narratives about the family, the economy, and politics in today's neoliberal era. Offering insightful interpretations of many of these films, Ortner argues that during the past three decades independent American cinema has functioned as a vital form of cultural critique.

Wandering God

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Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 0791493245
Total Pages : 367 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (914 download)

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Book Synopsis Wandering God by : Morris Berman

Download or read book Wandering God written by Morris Berman and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents an analysis of the "nomadic" consciousness of our ancestors, and the forces --religious and political --that overwhelmed it during the Neolithic era, and considers its revival in the twentieth century.

Alternate Americas

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Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 0313025142
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Alternate Americas by : M. Keith Booker

Download or read book Alternate Americas written by M. Keith Booker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2006-02-28 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than 50 years, science fiction films have been among the most important and successful products of American cinema, and are worthy of study for that reason alone. On a deeper level, the genre has reflected important themes, concerns and developments in American society, so that a history of science fiction film also serves as a cultural history of America over the past half century. M. Keith Booker has selected fifteen of the most successful and innovative science fiction films of all time, and examined each of them at length—from cultural, technical and cinematic perspectives—to see where they came from and what they meant for the future of cinema and for America at large. From Invasion of the Body Snatchers to Star Wars, from Blade Runner to The Matrix, these landmark films have expressed our fears and dreams, our abilities and our deficiencies. In this deep-seeking investigation, we can all find something of ourselves that we recognize, as well as something that we've never recognized before. The focus on a fairly small number of landmark films allows detailed attention to genuinely original movies, including: Forbidden Planet, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Blade Runner, The Terminator, Robocop, The Abyss, Independence Day, and The Matrix. This book is ideal for general readers interested in science fiction and film.

Coming to Our Senses

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Publisher : Echo Point Books & Media
ISBN 13 : 9781626542914
Total Pages : 426 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (429 download)

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Book Synopsis Coming to Our Senses by : Morris Berman

Download or read book Coming to Our Senses written by Morris Berman and published by Echo Point Books & Media. This book was released on 2015-12-04 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ambitious and provocative analysis of the relationship between culture, mind, and body in the history of Western society, Morris Berman's influential classic Coming to our Senses has been engrossing audiences with its carefully-researched and thoughtful exploration of somatic experience for decades. Finally back in print for a new generation of readers, Berman's treatise on the West's historic denial of physicality is relevant as ever in a society increasingly plagued by addiction, depression, and distraction. Berman deftly weaves threads of history, philosophy, and psychoanalysis into an elegant and accessible argument about the ways our physical experience of the world relates to the culture in which we exist. To make his case, Berman draws on studies of infant behavior with mirrors; analyzes symbolic expressions of human-animal relationships ranging from cave-wall etchings to Disney cartoons; investigates esoteric breathing techniques and occult rituals; and examines the nature of creativity. Berman also illuminates Christianity's origins in early Jewish meditation techniques, explains how the notion of romantic love evolved out of medieval Christian heresy, how modern science grew out of Renaissance mysticism, and how Nazism was the most recent episode in a recurring cycle of orthodoxy and heresy. A demanding and radical work of history, social criticism, and philosophy, Coming to our Senses is a beautifully-written and vastly important book. Readers interested in related titles from Morris Berman will also want to see: Are We There Yet (ISBN: 9781635610567), Spinning Straw Into Gold (ISBN: 9781635610536).

Twilight of American Sanity

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Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062394525
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (623 download)

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Book Synopsis Twilight of American Sanity by : Allen Frances

Download or read book Twilight of American Sanity written by Allen Frances and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Unravel[s] the national psyche that brought our politics to this moment.” — Evan Osnos, The New Yorker A landmark book, from “one of the world’s most prominent psychiatrists” (The Atlantic): Allen Frances analyzes the nation, viewing the rise of Donald J. Trump as darkly symptomatic of a deeper societal distress that must be understood if we are to move forward. Equally challenging and profound, Twilight of American Sanity “joins a small shelf of essential titles—Arlie Hochschild’s Strangers in Their Own Land is another—that help explain why and how the Trump presidency happened” (Kirkus). It is comforting to see President Donald Trump as a crazy man, a one-off, an exception—not a reflection on us or our democracy. But in ways I never anticipated, his rise was absolutely predictable and a mirror on our soul. … What does it say about us, that we elected someone so manifestly unfit and unprepared to determine mankind’s future? Trump is a symptom of a world in distress, not its sole cause. Blaming him for all our troubles misses the deeper, underlying societal sickness that made possible his unlikely ascent. Calling Trump crazy allows us to avoid confronting the craziness in our society—if we want to get sane, we must first gain insight about ourselves. Simply put: Trump isn’t crazy, but our society is. —from TWILIGHT OF AMERICAN SANITY More than three years in the making: the world's leading expert on psychiatric diagnosis, past leader of the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM (“the bible of psychology”), and author of the influential international bestseller on the medicalization of ordinary life, Saving Normal, draws upon his vast experience to deliver a powerful critique of modern American society’s collective slide away from sanity and offers an urgently needed prescription for reclaiming our bearings. Widely cited in recent months as the man who quite literally wrote the diagnostic criteria for narcissism, Allen Frances, M.D., has been at the center of the debate surrounding President Trump’s mental state—quoted in Evan Osnos’s May 2017 New Yorker article (“How Trump Could Get Fired”) and publishing a much-shared opinion letter in the New York Times (“An Eminent Psychiatrist Demurs on Trump’s Mental State”). Frances argues that Trump is "bad, not mad"--and that the real question to wrestle with is how we as a country could have chosen him as our leader. Twilight of American Sanity is an essential work for understanding our national crisis.

Twilight of the Elites

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Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0307720462
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis Twilight of the Elites by : Chris Hayes

Download or read book Twilight of the Elites written by Chris Hayes and published by Crown. This book was released on 2013-06-11 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful and original argument that traces the roots of our present crisis of authority to an unlikely source: the meritocracy. Over the past decade, Americans watched in bafflement and rage as one institution after another – from Wall Street to Congress, the Catholic Church to corporate America, even Major League Baseball – imploded under the weight of corruption and incompetence. In the wake of the Fail Decade, Americans have historically low levels of trust in their institutions; the social contract between ordinary citizens and elites lies in tatters. How did we get here? With Twilight of the Elites, Christopher Hayes offers a radically novel answer. Since the 1960s, as the meritocracy elevated a more diverse group of men and women into power, they learned to embrace the accelerating inequality that had placed them near the very top. Their ascension heightened social distance and spawned a new American elite--one more prone to failure and corruption than any that came before it. Mixing deft political analysis, timely social commentary, and deep historical understanding, Twilight of the Elites describes how the society we have come to inhabit – utterly forgiving at the top and relentlessly punitive at the bottom – produces leaders who are out of touch with the people they have been trusted to govern. Hayes argues that the public's failure to trust the federal government, corporate America, and the media has led to a crisis of authority that threatens to engulf not just our politics but our day-to-day lives. Upending well-worn ideological and partisan categories, Hayes entirely reorients our perspective on our times. Twilight of the Elites is the defining work of social criticism for the post-bailout age.

The Reenchantment of the World

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Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801492259
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (922 download)

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Book Synopsis The Reenchantment of the World by : Morris Berman

Download or read book The Reenchantment of the World written by Morris Berman and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1981 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Reenchantment of the World is a perceptive study of our scientific consciousness and a cogent and forceful challenge to its supremacy. Focusing on the rise of the mechanistic idea that we can know the natural world only by distancing ourselves from it, Berman shows how science acquired its controlling position in the consciousness of the West. He analyzes the holistic, animistic tradition--destroyed in the wake of Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--which viewed man as a participant in the cosmos, not as an isolated observer. Arguing that the holistic world view must be revived in some credible form before we destroy our society and our environment, he explores the possibilities for a consciousness appropriate to the modern era. Ecological rather than animistic, this new world view would be grounded in the real and intimate connection between man and nature.

The Twilight Struggle

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Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300250789
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis The Twilight Struggle by : Hal Brands

Download or read book The Twilight Struggle written by Hal Brands and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading historian's guide to great-power competition, as told through America's successes and failures in the Cold War The United States is entering an era of long-term great-power competition with China and Russia. Such global struggles happen at a geopolitical twilight, between the sunshine of peace and the darkness of war. In this innovative and illuminating book, Hal Brands, a leading historian and former Pentagon adviser, argues that America should look to the history of the Cold War for lessons in how to succeed in great-power rivalry today. Although dangerous authoritarian powers are challenging U.S. influence, America's muscle memory for dealing with powerful foes has atrophied in the thirty years since the Cold War ended. In long-term competitions where the diplomatic jockeying is intense and the threat of violence is omnipresent, the United States will need all the historical insight it can get. Exploring how America won a previous twilight struggle is the starting point for determining how America can master another persistent high-stakes rivalry today.

Irony in The Twilight Zone

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Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1442260327
Total Pages : 255 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (422 download)

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Book Synopsis Irony in The Twilight Zone by : David Melbye

Download or read book Irony in The Twilight Zone written by David Melbye and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-12-14 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rod Serling’s pioneering series TheTwilight Zone (1959 to 1964) is remembered for its surprise twist endings and pervading sense of irony.While other American television series of the time also experimented with ironic surprises, none depended on these as much as Serling’s. However, irony was not used merely as a structural device—Serling and his writers used it as a provocative means by which to comment on the cultural landscape of the time. Irony in The Twilight Zone: How the Series Critiqued Postwar American Culture explores the multiple types of irony—such as technological, invasive, martial, sociopolitical, and domestic—that Serling, Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, and other contributors employed in the show. David Melbye explains how each kind of irony critiqued of a specific aspect of American culture and how all of them informed one another, creating a larger social commentary. This book also places the show’s use of irony in historical and philosophical contexts, connecting it to a rich cultural tradition reaching back to ancient Greece. The Twilight Zone endures because it uses irony to negotiate its definitively modernist moment of “high” social consciousness and “low” cultural escapism. With its richly detailed, frequently unexpected readings of episodes, Irony in The Twilight Zone offers scholars and fans a fresh and unique lens through which to view the classic series.