Book reviewer George Scialabba commented: Most historians would be content to have written one deeply researched and interpretively wide-ranging trilogy on a large and important subject.
The second trilogy, a grimly fascinating inventory of the pathologies of contemporary America and an unsparing portrait of American history and national character, is a masterpiece.
Max Weber, early 20th-century German sociologist, was concerned with the "disenchantment" he associated with the rise of modernity, capitalism, and scientific consciousness.
Berman challenges the supremacy of the modern world view and argues for some new form of the older holistic tradition, which he describes as follows: "Participating consciousness" involves merger, or identification, with one's surroundings, and bespeaks a psychic wholeness that has long since passed from the scene.
[11] In 2013 he received the "Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity" from the Media Ecology Association.