Five brilliant essays on the renewal in the arts at a time when civilization was on the threshold of sweeping change. The authors discuss not merely a change in the forms or the subject matter of the arts but a spiritual phenomenon. Each emphasizes the artist's responsibility both to the individual self and to the society that he or she expresses.

Contributors: Lewis Mumford, Pete Viereck, James A. Michener, William Schuman, and Marc Connelly.