First published in 1968, the year of international-student confrontation and revolution, this classic challenges readers to choose which of two roads humankind ought to take: the one, leading to a completely mechanized society with the individual a helpless cog in a machine bent on mass destruction; or the second, being the path of humanism and hope.

This was a very pastoral, insightful book on the emotional/psychological factors that can leave a person wrestling with deep doubt regarding the truth of Christianity - either those who do not call themselves a Christian but would like to believe, or those who do consider themselves a Christian but experience deep distrust and disbelief at times.

The book deals with the historical roots of the idea of alienation according to Erich Fromm, and the various manifestations of the idea of alienation as it appears in the writings of modern and contemporary philosophers, especially those influenced by Fromm such as Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, Marcuse and others. It also deals with the different dimensions of man’s alienation from himself and from his world, according to Fromm, using a comparative analytical approach.

In this provocative book, the distinguished author writes to break the deadlock in the struggle between the instinctivism of Konrad Lorenz and behavior psychologist B.F. Skinner.