SOURCE: "Modernity and Progress: An Exchange," in Salmagundi, Vol. 9, No. 3, Winter, 1992, pp. 82-116.

Below, each writer separately explains the themes of The True and Only Heaven. In the first essay Isaac offers a point-by-point analysis of Lasch's social criticism in his book, concentrating on what he perceives as omissions and dismissals in Lasch's otherwise astute observations. In the second essay Lasch responds to specific criticisms of his book made by several reviewers, focusing especially on those by Isaac about Lasch's treatment of "the problem of democracy."

I. on Christopher Lasch

Both the facts which justified my indignation and the moral motives which demanded it stemmed directly from the district where I was born. This explains … why everything I shall ever write, although I have traveled and lived abroad, is concerned solely with this same district or more precisely with the part of it which can be seen from...