CROWD CULTURE
An Examination of the American Way of Life
By Bernard Iddings Bell
List Item No. 303
ISBN: 1-882926-60-9 (cloth)
180 pages (includes Index)
List Price: $19.95
Internet Special: $16.96 —
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It is truly unfortunate that, until now, the work of Canon Bernard Iddings Bell has been out of print for some time. For Bell's cultural criticism was an important impetus to the formation of the postwar traditionalist conservative synthesis, drawing the attention of Russell Kirk and others. In Crowd Culture, a remarkably prescient work originally published in 1952 (before the words "dumbing down" had ever been uttered), Bell excoriated the complacent and conformist egalitarian ethos that he believed was undermining American education, religion, and culture. In an age of stultifying homogenization, Bell's relevance has never seemed greater.
What They're Saying...
"Fifty years after its publication, ISI Books has wisely and bravely chosen to republish Bernard Iddings Bell's Crowd Culture for thoughtful readers: a commendable choice for a number of reasons, one of them being that this book has remained extraordinarily timely."
—John Lukacs, University Bookman
"…both by the purity of his prose and he integrity of his thought, Bell represented the central traditions of civilization."
—Chronicles
"His essays on schools is brutally prophetic: already in the 1950s he saw the sowing of the seeds of the rotten fruit of modern education."
—New Oxford Review
"A vital and exciting book. The late Bernard Iddings Bell—clergyman and cultural critic—stretches a comradely hand across the decades to moderns caught up in the same battles he himself waged with courage and insight. It puts me in mind of Victor Laszlo as, near the end of 'Casablanca,'' he says to Rick, 'Welcome back to the fight."
— William Murchison, Columnist, Creators Syndicate
"Half a century ago, Canon Bell perceived with frightening clarity the coarsening of American culture that was already under way, and warned that neither America’s schools nor its churches would stop it. Since then we have been through the Sixties and much else, and the rot is much further advanced. This perceptive book describes the disease in detail, and prescribes a cure that is needed now more than ever."
— William A. Rusher, Distinguished Fellow, The Claremont Institute
Crowd Culture...is a passionate analysis of the decay of principles, morality, and standards among us which threatens to extirpate all the truth and beauty which
twenty centuries of Christian culture have bestowed upon our undeserving age."
— Russell Kirk, Author, The Politics of Prudence
"Time has not dimmed the clarion voice of Bernard Iddings Bell, who makes a compelling case for a 'democratic elite' that will enlighten the common man with the wisdom of the ages and help him to see life in 'all its possible richness.'"
— Lee Edwards, Adjunct Professor of Politics, Catholic University of America
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