Vance Packard and American Social Criticism

“[Horowitz] offers a wealth of insight into twentieth-century journalism, homegrown American liberalism, and the role of the popular intellectual.” — American Historical Review

“[Packard’s] books constituted an enormously influential criticism of American culture after the Second World War. . . . Packard deserves a place alongside more formidably intellectual figures in any history of twentieth-century American social thought.” — New Republic

“Drawing extensively on Packard’s writings and supplementing them with personal interviews, Horowitz has produced a first-rate biography that neither romanticizes nor diminishes his subject. . . . The reader is treated to a balanced, thoroughly researched and thoughtful biography.” — Journal of Social History

“Vance Packard and American Social Criticism combines a perceptive intellectual biography with an evocative exploration of larger issues in American life over the twentieth century. It is a model study.” — Journal of American History

“A graceful, probing biography of a famous critic of consumption, affluence, and American life. . . . Combines a perceptive intellectual biography with an evocative exploration of larger issues in American life over the twentieth century. A model study.” — Journal of American History

“I learned from Vance Packard that a journalist who could not get articles published that defied the conventional wisdom could write a book. . . . Packard’s classics — Hidden Persuaders, Status Seekers, and Waste Makers — demonstrated how a writer working from personal truth and social observation could foster a public awakening as Americans put the 1950s behind them and entered the 1960s. In Vance Packard and American Social Criticism, Daniel Horowitz has captured the drama and importance of Packard’s pioneering work.” — Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique

“Horowitz’s sensitive account of Packard’s ambivalent outlook is more than the story of one individual. It is also a well-constructed 'picture window' through which Horowitz adeptly helps us to view journalism, social science, suburban affluence, and other facets of postwar America. This perspective makes his book invaluable for cultural, intellectual, and social historians alike.” — Joan Shelley Rubin, State University of New York College at Brockport

“A highly readable, thoughtful biography. . . . By investigating both audience reactions to Packard’s best-selling social critiques and academic reproaches of Packard as a simplifier and popularizer of serious ideas, Horowitz has provided intriguing insights into the tensions between popular culture and high culture in the 1950s and 1960s.” — Roland Marchand, University of California, Davis