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Surviving The Death Of God: Existentialism, God, And Man At Post-Wwii Yale, Robert Tice Lalka

Kaplan Senior Essay Prize for Use of Library Special Collections

“This is our world to build, adorn, or destroy, not God's or anyone else's.”

These were the words of Hugh McClean, a Yale student both before and after the Second World War. When the war ended, McClean and thousands of his peers returned from duty in Europe and the Pacific to complete their education at colleges across the United States. They saw the world differently than they had before; they certainly viewed the world differently than their parents and grandparents. They had heard leaders of the world’s warring nations invoke destiny to validate their warfare. Some of these teenagers had …