In One-Dimensional Man Herbert Marcuse has moved on to what is the central problem of our civilization. how to reconcile orginality and spontaneity and all the creative aspects of our human nature with a prevailing drive to rationality that tends to reduce all varieties of temperament and desire to one universal system of thought and behavior. He does not claim to solve this problem, but by presenting the alternatives in clear and critical terms, he makes the choice inevitable to every socially responsible individual. That is to say, he makes us realize that the choice is now between the life and the death of our civilization."

Herbert Read