This book examines the underlying causes of the tumult of the 1920s in America, which has since captivated writers, readers, moviegoers, and television viewers. The author proposes that the impact of World War I, the popularization of Freud and Darwin, and the especially cataclysmic effects of the machine age shaped the lives of people living in this decade. He maintains that only in this context can much of the behavior of the time be understood, from the popularity of the Ku Klux Klan to the excesses of the flappers and the jazz age.