Please join Princeton University Press to celebrate the publication of Mark Greif’s The Age of the Crisis of Man: Thought and Fiction in America, 1933 – 1973. Greif will appear in conversation with New York Times film critic A.O. Scott to discuss the American novel and public intellect – past and present. Refreshments to follow.

About the book:

In 1933 the world witnessed Hitler’s ascent to power. Twelve years later atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. By the time the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, American intellectual culture had reached a consensus, across political lines, that mankind was surely in a state of crisis. Books by Reinhold Neibuhr (The Nature and Destiny of Man), Lewis Mumford (The Condition of Man), and Hannah Arendt (The Human Condition), remain some of the best known examples of the many volumes that grappled foremost with the issue of the human condition. They are, however, only a small few among a pervasive, and highly propulsive, body of literature that would continue to influence public dialogue and artistic production well into the 1960s. In The Age of the Crisis of Man, n+1 co-founder Mark Greif charts how a fundamental question of how to determine both the face and the fate of humanity framed, and was ultimately unraveled by, the creative output, critical and ethical debate, and profound shifts in public policy that took place after the Second World War.

Praise for The Age of the Crisis of Man:

"Mark Greif is one of my favorite contemporary essayists, and it's a pleasure to read his analysis of a time of change so fundamental to our culture and artworks today. This is a brilliant history of midcentury American (and European) thought. His writing is witty, profound, and able to change the inner landscape of anyone who encounters it."--Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be?

"An utterly surprising prehistory of our present, and one of the best imaginable roadmaps to the intellectual and literary geography of the last seventy years."--Elaine Scarry, Harvard University

"One shouldn’t use the word ‘masterpiece’ promiscuously, but this is a truly valuable excavation and explanation of a puzzling phase of twentieth-century culture that has been not only buried but largely forgotten. Mark Greif’s writing is utterly straightforward, and the book is limpidly researched, smartly argued, and, in case after case, stunningly right, as it sheds new light on the crucial middle decades of the century. I was riveted from start to finish."--Morris Dickstein, author of Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression

Mark Greif is assistant professor of literary studies at the New School. He is a founder and editor of the journal n+1.

A. O. Scott is a film critic for the New York Times and the author of a forthcoming book in defense of criticism.

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