Universally acclaimed when it was first published in 1968, Slouching Towards Bethlehem has become a modern classic. More than any other book of its time, this collection captures the mood of 1960s America, especially the center of its counterculture, California. These essays—keynoted by an extraordinary report on San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district—all reflect how and why things were then, and are now, falling apart in America: "the center cannot hold," as Yeats had warned. An incisive look at contemporary life, Slouching Towards Bethlehem is still admired as a stylistic masterpiece. "Didion is one of the very few writers of our time who approaches her terrible subject with absolute seriousness, with fear and humility and awe. Her powerful irony is often sorrowful rather than clever," as Joyce Carol Oates noted. "She has been an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time, a memorable voice, partly eulogistic, partly despairing; always in control."