America's Meltdown: The Lowest-Common-Denominator Society (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780275976392)

As entertainers, corporations, and even the government pander to the lowest common denominator, American life becomes increasingly vicarious, prefabricated, and bereft of meaning. This book examines contemporary American consciousness, considering the factors that have driven society toward gossip and sensationalism at the cost of substance and depth.

Celebrity news, video games, cookie-cutter schools, and shopping, shopping, shopping. As entertainers, corporations, and even the government pander to the lowest common denominator, American life becomes increasingly vicarious, prefabricated, and bereft of meaning. This book examines contemporary American consciousness, considering the factors that have driven society toward gossip and sensationalism at the cost of substance and depth.

Arden discusses the growing epidemic of acrimony, superficiality, attention deficit disorder, and complaints of ennui. He targets the reasons why American children have expressed their confused rage with deadly weapons, why a president boasts that he earned Cs in college, and why society has drifted into craving entertainment laced with violence and cheap thrills. The book is provocative reading for concerned citizens, as well as for scholars and researchers involved with contemporary American culture and society.

Author: John B. Arden
ISBN-10: 0275976394
ISBN-13: 9780275976392
Publisher: Praeger
Language: English
Published: 05/30/2003
Pages: 240
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.50h x 6.48w x 0.94d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 01/01/2004 pg. 951