The 20th century has seen America develop from a nation of outdoor plumbing and railroads into an international power with a complex informational infrastructure and reusable spacecraft. Yet the physical changes are nothing compared to the subtle, far-reaching implications of psychoanalysis or postmodernism. It's the stranger, richer, less easily quantifiable areas of cultural history that are discussed in The American Century, and while that might seem like intimidating reading, it's absolutely fascinating. All the fuzzy issues beloved by undergraduates—post-structuralism, deconstructionism, Marxism—are broken down and clearly analyzed in Norman F. Cantor's lucid style, making the incredibly intricate and convoluted patterns of modern thought accessible to any curious reader. Of course, it's a textbook at heart, and it's not light reading, but anyone who cares will find this wonderfully complete and precise book an excellent primer on behavioral and societal development. For filling in the blanks in your knowledge of the fuzzy sciences, this is the book; it's sure to be among the best of the dozens of millennial works we'll soon be seeing.