Christopher Lasch was born in Omaha in 1932. By the end of his life, cut short at age sixty-one, he had become one of the most famous intellectuals in the world. During his life of active writing from the time of the early Cold War until the fall of the Soviet Union, Lasch's distinctive voice pierced through the din of the nation's noisy political and cultural debates. A product and one-time devotee of the American Left, Lasch later solidified his standing as a commanding figure in American letters as a trenchant and at times brutal critic of American liberalism. Throughout his life, both when he was firmly planted in the traditions of the Left and after his dissent began, Lasch embodied a prairie skepticism about the vision and drift of his fellow intellectuals, the allegedly liberating aspects of modern life, and the coercive inclinations of technocratic planners.