Generation of Vipers Author:Philip Wylie Perhaps the most vitriolic attack ever launched on the American way of livingfrom politicians to professors to businessmen to Mom to sexual mores to religionGeneration of Vipers ranks with the works of De Tocqueville and Emerson in defining the American character and malaise. Wylie's classic, written with devastating wit and a pen as sharp as a ... more »barber's razor, wages war on all forms of American hypocrisy. Remarkably, or perhaps not so, what Philip Wylie has to say rings as rue today as when he first wrote Vipers in 1942, and no doubt it will continue to offend and outrage both the Left and Right. Harsh, bitter, and filled with venom toward those who have corrupted the America that "could have been," Generation of Vipers will be read with pleasure and indignation a century from now.
This is the book that made Philip Wylie famous in 1944. Philip Wylie is bitter and caustic. He calls his book "a sermon," but feels no need to be charitable in his attacks. Wylie pleads for a more rational society, one that is based on sound psychological principles. For those who agree with him, his book is a reaffirmation; for those who don't, it stimulates the circulation. "A Rabelaisian catalogue of sin and moral desuetude...truly a remarkable book." (New York Tribune)« less