The Wreck of Western Culture: Humanism Revisited

This outstanding little book will be a breath of fresh air to anyone feeling that the current theories about the cause for the decline of the West are getting a bit stale. Carroll lays the blame directly at the feet of what is arguably the West's greatest achievment, humanism. He applauds the appreciation of the cheerful human grateful to be alive, but decries the hubris that assumes we can be whatever we choose. He also makes us wrestle with the fact that is not the "death of God" that is behind our cultural demise so much as our own inability to find a place to stand from which to face our own mortality. Carroll's tracing of the threads of humanism thoughout the history of the art and literature of the past 500 years is masterful. He explains how we got where we are and makes helpful suggestions as to a possible, if unlikely, route out of the present impasse.