“The Affluent Society” is a modern classic, because it helped define a new moment in the human condition. For most of history, “hunger, sickness, and cold” threatened nearly everyone, Galbraith wrote.

This week, in The Affluent Society (Houghton Mifflin; $4), Galbraith published what he obviously intended to be a searching inquiry into the U.S. economy.

PURSUIT OF THE PRODIGAL (292 pp.)—Louis Auchincloss—Houghton Mifflin ($3.75).Lawyer Reese Parmelee is rich, wellborn, intelligent, young, tall and thewed like an ox. He is fearsome in war ...

In “The Affluent Society,” Galbraith argued that advancing technology would meet most material needs with far less human labor. But instead of rethinking what a good society looks like, we ...

Adding to the drama, Buckley was a consummate Yalie, author of “God and Man at Yale”, and Galbraith, the Harvard professor, was author of “The Affluent Society,” with or without God.

Under British colonial rule, the Singapore Municipality and the Singapore Botanic Gardens planted roadside trees and created open spaces for recreational activities. In 1967 the government introduced ...