Today's culture, according to author Allen Armac in his brilliant and thought-provoking new book, is a mass culture. We live, breathe, work and often think as a group. We have mass education, mass entertainment, mass industrial production and mass religions as well. But where did this kind of group culture come from?

Armac carefully traces its creation back to the rise of the middle class, which largely began as a demographic movement in 1870, when ordinary people took on the world of the "royals” and rebuilt it to their taste, stripping the pomp and glory to try to create a braver new world. But in doing so, Armac argues, these same people impacted every aspect of our lives from that day forward - and not always for the better.

From education to communication to public opinion, we live in a global society. Everything we see, say or do is impacted by the masses. Given this, can any one individual improve present social conditions and make a better world for everyone? Can we go beyond our present mass culture to create brand new societal trends and values that we want to succeed and do away

with those that we don't? And can we reclaim the beauty of old artisan traditions instead of mass productions?

Armac answers these intriguing questions and more as he examines mass cultures through history in incisive, thorough and absolutely fascinating detail. The essence of the book reaches its climax in the last chapter that shows us an ideal way out from the dead-end of our age - ennoblement of the entire population. Provocative and pointed and simmering with intelligence, this is one book that should be essential reading for every thinking person.

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