The Pursuit of Loneliness: America’s Discontent and the Search for a New Democratic Ideal

"The Pursuit of Loneliness is still worth reading because it honors the mission of sociology not to train a caste of knowers but to contribute to society's knowledge of itself." – from the introduction by Todd Gitlin"If I had to select a single book by which to tell a stranger what life in this country has become and why, it would be this one." – Edgar Z. Friedenberg in The New York Review of Books"A brilliant, sweeping and revelant critique … An insightful, well-written, and thought-provoking book that illumines each of the many aspects of American culture that it touches." –  Kenneth Keniston in The New York Times