Lasch, Christopher (1932–1994)

Despite launching a sustained assault on the very foundations of the American way of life, Christopher Lasch is now considered to be one of the most important public intellectuals of the twentieth century. Lasch was a historian but did not confine his inquiry to the annals of history. Rather, he utilized a deep understanding of historical processes to address contemporary Western culture as it unfolded. Lasch addressed issues as diverse as public morality, the family, the rise of feminism and liberalism in the postwar era, and the growth of the market and its gradual domination of social life and in doing so displayed a perspicacious ability to grasp the essence of postwar America as it abandoned its brief flirtation with social democracy and returned to ...