AMERICAN MEMOIR

This book was originally a series of programs for the National Educational Television and Radio Center, and it is a retrospective look at our popular tastes, attitudes, ideals, cultural and intellectual standards and how they have changed from the conspicuous vulgarism and more serious defiance of the '20's. This is necessarily open to interpretation, but Mr. Dodds' review of today, and only yesterday, is reasonable and recognizable in terms of the Best Sellers since 1900 (from Tarkington to Salinger-""civilizations"" rather than ""generations apart""); Magazines (the bad have become worse, the good- more alert and more intelligent); Movies; Radio; Business- from the captain of industry to the corporate man; Mass Culture; Architecture; Advertising; Satire; Automobiles; and finally the American Hero.... One of the American attitudes- not indicated- is our fondness for the public slap which accounts for Vance Packard's success, and the likelihood that this book- a rather pleasant guide to our national habits and socio-cultural climate, may be overlooked.