The Hidden Persuader

"Packard's prose is rarely moving and sometimes clunky, but he was able to intuit and even predict the anxieties of postwar America better than almost anyone else. Much of what we talk about now, and many of our current anxieties, hearken back to Packard's popular books. When environmentalist and social critic James Howard Kunstler describes America as 'physically arranged on-the-ground to produce maximum loneliness, arranged economically to produce maximum anxiety, and disposed socially to produce maximum alienation'; when activist Annie Leonard denounces the cult of consumption; when sociologist Robert Putnam surveys an America in which we are increasingly 'bowling alone'; all are echoing Packard, who saw the downsides and discontents of our new way of living at a time when most people were still discovering its benefits."

Addison Del Mastro in a 2017 American Conservative article writes an appreciation of Vance Packard.