Christopher Lasch

In his wide-ranging books and essays, Mr. Lasch offered a leftist analysis of industrial capitalism and its effects on American politics, social arrangements, modes of thought and personal psychology. As a counterpoise to the alienation and despair he saw as pervasive in American life, he proposed a progressive program that, paradoxically, relied heavily on the values of community, family and self-discipline. Diagnosing a Malaise "The Culture of Narcissism"(W. W. Norton) is his best-known work. In the 1979 book, which was …