There is an excellent article on the life and legacy of T. S. Eliot in Commentary Magazine, which serves as a good introduction and panoramic overview of Eliot’s place in twentieth century culture and his importance to the the twenty-first century. 

Eliot’s place as a poet of the highest stature is assured. The Waste Land is the quintessential debunking of modernity and is also, simultaneously, a potent antidote to the poison of postmodernism. His Four Quartets is indubitably the highest achievement in Christian verse since Hopkins. On the other hand, his criticism is less reliable and sometimes frankly quirky. How can one take seriously a critic who has the audacity to suggest that Hamlet is an artistic failure?

In any event, the aforementioned article is well worth reading: “T.S. Eliot and the Demise of the Literary Culture” by Joseph Epstein: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/t-s–eliot-and-the-demise-of-the-literary-culture-15564