The Dust of Death: The Sixties Counterculture and How It Changed America Forever (IVP Signature Collection)

“I read The Dust of Death as a young man and new Christian in 1977. I had been profoundly influenced by counter-cultural figures such as Aldous Huxley and Timothy Leary. Like many around my age, I was drawn to Eastern mysticism and the occult. Os Guinness helped set me straight and put it all into perspective. He got to the roots of the counter culture. He discerned its world-shaking significance and offered a sharp rational and biblical critique. The Dust of Death helped give me the intellectual confidence to critique culture and defend the Christian faith, which I have been trying to do ever since. Thank you, Dr. Guinness!”

“For decades now, Os Guinness has served readers with excellent cultural analysis that helps us to 'read our times.' I'm delighted to see one of his early works, a substantive look at the era-defining decade of the sixties, made available again, with a preface that includes some recent thoughts about the strengths and weaknesses of his earlier analysis. Os is a gift to the church, and his excellent look at the sixties, written just a few years after that momentous decade, remains relevant to conversations and movements we still encounter today.”

“Anyone interested in the history of evangelical Christianity in the US during the turbulence of the sixties should read this thoughtful cultural analysis, which not only critiqued the establishment and the counter culture but also, since its publication fifty years ago, has shaped a generation of American evangelicals. Os Guinness stands in a line of Europeans—including Alexis de Tocqueville, G. K. Chesterton, and Frances Trollope—who have helped us see ourselves in the context of world history and cultures. Whether you find The Dust of Death prophetic or myopic, enlightening or provoking, it will most definitely make you think. It may also engender your hope for the future of the Christian faith in even our, again, very turbulent times.”

“The Dust of Death was a bolt from the blue when it was first published. . . . A fair bit of cultural history has flowed downstream since its appearance, yet on its main points—with its bold challenge to the wisdom of the modern world and its bracing appeal for Christians to live up to the name they bear—this book is even more timely than when it first appeared.”

“Contrary to public opinion, the sixties have never really gone away. The main difference is that what was once countercultural has now entered the mainstream. Os Guinness's trenchant analysis of contemporary culture and his call for a Christian alternative—a Third Way based on love and truth, revival and reformation—are now more important than ever.”

“The Dust of Death explained to its original readers the meaning of the headlines they read. But it also explains to us the meaning of today's headlines.”

“To make sense of contemporary 'mainstream' America, one has to understand the countercultural revolution of the 1960s. The 'dust of death' it threw up is now settling across every aspect of American life. Os Guinness's study of that movement remains a magisterial work—nothing short of required reading for anyone seeking wisdom and understanding to cope with its challenges in this present day.”