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The main purpose of the publication is to present a linguo-cultural picture of traditional values (such as the value of life, freedom, dignity, family, religion, community, truth, good, beauty, and God) reflected in Anglo-American and Polish paremiological units. The author analyses the proverbs featuring direct nominal exponents of traditional values with the use of semantic approach and divides them into several thematic categories and subcategories related to the sphere of values. Paremiological analysis carried out from a contrastive perspective provides additional evidence to support the claim that, despite some widespread axiological views common to languages, there exist distinct differences characteristic only of a given linguo-culture, naturally caused by different, among others, geographical, historical, social, and cultural environments.

A perfectly timed book for the educational resistance—those of us who believe in public schools Culture wars have engulfed our schools. Extremist groups are seeking to ban books, limit what educators can teach, and threaten the very foundations of public education. What's behind these efforts? Why are our schools suddenly so vulnerable? And how can the millions of Americans who love their public schools fight back? In this concise, hard-hitting guide, journalist Jennifer C. Berkshire and education scholar Jack Schneider answer these questions and chart a way forward.The Education Wars explains the sudden obsession with race and gender in schools, as well as the ascendancy of book-banning efforts. It offers a clear analysis of school vouchers and the impact they'll have on school finances. It deciphers the movement for “parents'rights,” explaining the rights that students and taxpayers also have. And it reveals how the ostensible pursuit of “religious freedom” opens the door to discrimination against vulnerable children.Berkshire and Schneider outline the core issues driving the education wars, offering essential information about issues, actors, and potential outcomes. In so doing, they lay out what is at stake for parents, teachers, and students and provide a road map for ensuring that public education survives this present assault.A book that will enrage and enlighten the millions of citizens who believe in their public schools, here is a long-overdue handbook and guide to action.

The Routledge Handbook on the American Dream: Volume 2 explores the social, economic, and cultural aspects of the American Dream in both theory and reality in the twenty-first century. This collection of essays brings together leading scholars from a range of fields to further develop the themes and issues explored in the first volume.The concept of the American Dream, first expounded by James Truslow Adams in The Epic of America in 1931, is at once both ubiquitous and difficult to define. The term perfectly captures the hopes of freedom, opportunity and upward social mobility invested in the nation. However, the American Dream appears increasingly illusory in the face of widening inequality and apparent lack of opportunity, particularly for the poor and ethnic, or otherwise marginalized, minorities in the United States. As such, an understanding of the American Dream through both theoretical analyses and empirical studies, whether qualitative or quantitative, is crucial to understanding contemporary America. Like the first volume of The Routledge Handbook on the American Dream, this collection will be of great interest to students and researchers in a range of fields in the humanities and social sciences.

A timely and kaleidoscopic reflection on the importance of the arts in our societyIn the midst of a devastating pandemic, as theaters, art galleries and museums, dance stages and concert halls shuttered their doors indefinitely and institutional funding for entertainment and culture evaporated almost overnight, a cohort of highly acclaimed scholars, artists, cultural critics, and a journalist sat down to ponder an urgent question: Are the arts essential? Across twenty-five highly engaging essays, these luminaries join together to address this question and to share their own ideas, experiences, and ambitions for the arts. Darren Walker discusses the ideals of justice and fairness advanced through the arts; Mary Schmidt Campbell shows us how artists and cultural institutions helped New York overcome the economic crisis of the 1970s, bringing new investment and creativity to the city; Deborah Willis traces histories of oppression and disenfranchisement documented by photographers; and Oskar Eustis offers a brief history lesson on how theaters have built communities since the Golden Age of Athens. Other topics include the vibrancy and diversity of Muslim culture in America during a time of rising Islamophobia; the strengthening of the common good through the art and cultural heritages of indigenous communities; digital data aggregation informing and influencing new art forms; and the jazz lyricisms of a theater piece inspired by a composer's two-month coma. Drawing on their experiences across the spectrum of the arts, from the performing and visual arts to poetry and literature, the contributors remind readers that the arts are everywhere and, in one important way after another, they question, charge and change us. These impassioned essays remind us of the human connections the arts can forge—how we find each other through the arts, across the most difficult divides, and how the arts can offer hope in the most challenging times. What answer does this convocation offer to Are the Arts Essential? A resounding Yes.

What do we mean by the American dream? Can we define it? Or does any discussion of the phrase end inconclusively, the solid turned liquid—like ice melting? Do we know whether the American dream motivates and inspires or, alternately, obscures and deceives? The Routledge Handbook on the American Dream offers distinctive, authoritative, original essays by well-known scholars that address the social, economic, historical, philosophic, legal, and cultural dimensions of the American dream for the twenty-first century. The American dream, first discussed and defined in print by James Truslow Adams's The Epic of America (1931), has become nearly synonymous with being American. Adams's definition, although known to scholars, is often lost in our ubiquitous use of the term. When used today, the iconic phrase seems to encapsulate every fashion, fad, trend, association, or image the user identifies with the United States or American life. The American dream's ubiquity, though, argues eloquently for a deeper understanding of its heritage, its implications, and its impact—to be found in this first research handbook ever published on the topic.

Does it feel like no matter where you look or what the issue is, everyone seems to be fighting about everything? We live in the information age, with more access to knowledge than ever before, flowing to us in a never-ending digital stream of updates, statistics, polls, opinions, news, and narratives from those on opposing sides of any issue. And while we'd assume this influx of information would help us find a good, informed way forward in our culture, it actually stirs up all sorts of anger, anxiety, and even loneliness. This all contributes to an increasingly defensive society that feels like it's not only fracturing, but could go up in flames at any moment. If you're anything like the contributors to World on Fire, you've realized that all this knowledge isn't the same thing as wisdom. While our world relies on expected, reflexive, status-quo, earthly wisdom to make a way forward or take a side on any given issue, Christ would rather us rely on his unexpected, counterintuitive, going-against-the- grain, heavenly wisdom as outlined in his famous Beatitudes. This surprising wisdom is not a call to be removed from the fire we feel blazing around us, but one to engage and tame it—beginning with our own hearts. Whatever those nearest you seem to be arguing about today, and no matter what the fire looks like in your neck of the woods, Jesus has an answer for the ways his kingdom citizens should walk as they navigate the flames in his power and posture. In their own unique voice and in their own unique way, each contributor in World on Fire welcomes you to come explore not only some of the polarizing issues of our day, but how the unexpected wisdom of Jesus might help us be more discerning and Christlike amidst them.

Get the Summary of Ben Shapiro's The Right Side of History in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Original book introduction: In 2016, Ben Shapiro spoke at UC Berkeley. Hundreds of police officers were required from 10 UC campuses across the state to protect his speech, which was - ironically - about the necessity for free speech and rational debate. He came to argue that Western civilization is in the midst of a crisis of purpose and ideas. Our freedoms are built upon the twin notions that every human being is made in God's image and that human beings were created with reason capable of exploring God's world. We can thank these values for the birth of science, the dream of progress, human rights, prosperity, peace, and artistic beauty. Jerusalem and Athens built America, ended slavery, defeated the Nazis and the Communists, lifted billions from poverty, and gave billions spiritual purpose. Jerusalem and Athens were the foundations of the Magna Carta and the Treaty of Westphalia; they were the foundations of the Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail.

Get the Summary of Anne-Marie Slaughter's Renewalt in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Original book introduction: Weaving together personal stories and reflections with insights from the latest research in the social sciences, Slaughter recounts a difficult time of self‐examination and growth in the wake of a crisis that changed the way she lives, leads, and learns. She connects her experience to our national crisis of identity and values as the country looks into a four-hundred-year-old mirror and tries to confront and accept its full reflection. The promise of the Declaration of Independence has been hollow for so many for so long. That reckoning is the necessary first step toward renewal. The lessons here are not just for America. Slaughter shows how renewal is possible for anyone who is willing to see themselves with new eyes and embrace radical honesty, risk, resilience, interdependence, grace, and vision.

From the acclaimed author of Unfinished Business, a story of crisis and change that can help us find renewed honesty and purpose in our personal and political livesLike much of the world, America is deeply divided over identity, equality, and history. Renewal is Anne-Marie Slaughter's candid and deeply personal account of how her own odyssey opened the door to an important new understanding of how we as individuals, organizations, and nations can move backward and forward at the same time, facing the past and embracing a new future.Weaving together personal stories and reflections with insights from the latest research in the social sciences, Slaughter recounts a difficult time of self‐examination and growth in the wake of a crisis that changed the way she lives, leads, and learns. She connects her experience to our national crisis of identity and values as the country looks into a four-hundred-year-old mirror and tries to confront and accept its full reflection. The promise of the Declaration of Independence has been hollow for so many for so long. That reckoning is the necessary first step toward renewal. The lessons here are not just for America. Slaughter shows how renewal is possible for anyone who is willing to see themselves with new eyes and embrace radical honesty, risk, resilience, interdependence, grace, and vision.Part personal journey, part manifesto, Renewal offers hope tempered by honesty and is essential reading for citizens, leaders, and the change makers of tomorrow.

Get the Summary of Dan & Elliot Kirschner Rather's What Unites Us in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Original book introduction: In a collection of original essays, the venerated television journalist, Dan Rather, celebrates our shared values and what matters most in our great country, and shows us what patriotism looks like. Writing about the institutions that sustain us, such as public libraries, public schools, and national parks; the values that have transformed us, such as the struggle for civil rights; and the drive toward science and innovation that has made the United States great, Rather brings to bear his decades of experience on the frontlines of the world's biggest stories, and offers listeners a way forward. After a career spent as reporter and anchor for CBS News, where he interviewed every living president since Eisenhower and was on the ground for every major event, from the assassination of John F. Kennedy to Watergate to 9/11, Rather has also become a hugely popular voice of reason on social media, with nearly two million Facebook followers and an engaged new audience who help to make many of his posts go viral. With his famously plainspoken voice and a fundamental sense of hope, Rather has written the book to inspire conversation and listening, and to remind us all how we are ultimately united.

Get the Summary of Dan Crenshaw's Fortitude in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book.Original book introduction: Fortitude is a no-nonsense advice book for finding the strength to deal with everything from menial daily frustrations to truly difficult challenges. More than that, it is a roadmap for a more resilient American culture. With meditations on perseverance, failure, and finding much-needed heroes, the book is the antidote for a prevailing'safety culture'of trigger warnings and safe spaces. Interspersed with lessons from history and psychology is Crenshaw's own story of how an average American kid from the Houston suburbs went from war zones to the halls of Congress-and managed to navigate his path with a sense of humor and an even greater sense that, no matter what anyone else around us says or does, we are in control of our own destiny.

Trained relentlessly to work and consume, we make daily lifestyle decisions that promote corporate profits more than our own well-being. We also find ourselves working more, living in fragmented communities, and neglecting our most basic spiritual and political values. As Curtis White puts it, “In order to live, you will be asked to do what is no good, what is absurd, trivial, demeaning, and soul killing.” Although we belong to the world's most affluent society, somehow we never have the chance to ask: How shall we live?With his trademark humor and acerbic wit, White raises this impertinent question. He also debunks the conventional view that liberalism can answer it without drawing on spiritual values. Surveying American popular culture (including Office Space and The Da Vinci Code) to illustrate his points, White urges us to renew our commitment to “human fundamentals” as articulated by Henry David Thoreau-especially free time, home, and food-and to reclaim Thoreau's spirit of disobedience.Seeking imaginative answers to his central questions, White also interviews John De Graaf (Affluenza), James Howard Kunstler (The Long Emergency) and Michael Ableman (Fields of Plenty) about their views of the good life in our time.

Jordan Peterson's Twelve Rules for Life meets Jocko Willink and Leif Babin's Extreme Ownership in this tough-love leadership book from a Navy SEAL and rising star in Republican politics.In 2012, on his third tour of duty, an improvised explosive device left Dan Crenshaw's right eye destroyed and his left blinded. Only through the careful hand of his surgeons, and what doctors called a miracle, did Crenshaw's left eye recover partial vision. And yet, he persevered, completing two more deployments. Why? There are certain stories we tell ourselves about the hardships we face—we can become paralyzed by adversity or we can adapt and overcome. We can be fragile or we can find our fortitude. Crenshaw delivers a set of lessons to help you do just that.Most people's everyday challenges aren't as extreme as surviving combat, and yet our society is more fragile than ever: exploding with outrage, drowning in microaggressions, and devolving into divisive mob politics. The American spirit—long characterized by grit and fortitude—is unraveling. We must fix it.That's exactly what Crenshaw accomplishes with Fortitude. This book isn't about the problem, it's about the solution. And that solution begins with each and every one of us. We must all lighten up, toughen up, and begin treating our fellow Americans with respect and grace.Fortitude is a no-nonsense advice book for finding the strength to deal with everything from menial daily frustrations to truly difficult challenges. More than that, it is a roadmap for a more resilient American culture. With meditations on perseverance, failure, and finding much-needed heroes, the book is the antidote for a prevailing'safety culture'of trigger warnings and safe spaces. Interspersed with lessons from history and psychology is Crenshaw's own story of how an average American kid from the Houston suburbs went from war zones to the halls of Congress—and managed to navigate his path with a sense of humor and an even greater sense that, no matter what anyone else around us says or does, we are in control of our own destiny.

In this powerful and inspiring memoir, a Pakistani immigrant shares his story of finding new freedoms and a new faith in America.It's easy to talk about freedom. But unless someone has lived in a world that suffocates freedom, it's difficult to appreciate the liberty found in America. This is the true story of a Pakistani Muslim who immigrates to the United States for college and discovers five transformational freedoms along the way: the freedom to fail and start over, to love, to choose one's faith, to be an entrepreneur, and to self-govern.Contrasting these precious freedoms with the life he lived in Pakistan, Ali's story reveals that God is the true source of liberty as He works in people's lives to bring about redemption. A call to value and preserve American freedoms, Beyond the Golden Door is also an invitation for readers to consider ultimate freedom in Jesus Christ.

Diversity and Philanthropy at African American Museums is the first scholarly book to analyze contemporary African American museums from a multifaceted perspective. While it puts a spotlight on the issues and challenges related to racial politics that black museums collectively face in the 21st century, it also shines a light on how they intersect with corporate culture, youth culture, and the broader cultural world. Turning the lens to philanthropy in the contemporary era, Banks throws light on the establishment side of African American museums and demonstrates how this contrasts with their grassroots foundations.Drawing on over 80 in-depth interviews with trustees and other supporters of African American museums across the United States, this book offers an inside look at the world of cultural philanthropy. While patrons are bound together by being among the distinct group of cultural philanthropists who support black museums, the motivations and meanings underlying their giving depart in both subtle and considerable ways depending on race and ethnicity, profession, generation, and lifestyle. Revealing not only why black museums matter in the eyes of supporters, the book also complicates the conventional view that social class drives giving to cultural nonprofits. It also paints a vivid portrait of how diversity colors cultural philanthropy, and philanthropy more broadly, in the 21st century. Diversity and Philanthropy at African American Museums will be a valuable resource for scholars and practitioners engaged with African American heritage. It will also offer important insights for academics, as well as cultural administrators, nonprofit leaders, and fundraisers who are concerned with philanthropy and diversity.

Fifty-two percent of Chinese Americans report having no religious affiliation, making them the least religiously-identified ethnic group in the United States. But that statistic obscures a much more complex reality. Family Sacrifices reveals that Chinese Americans employ familism, not religion, as the primary narrative by which they find meaning, identity, and belonging. As a transpacific lived tradition, Chinese American familism prioritizes family above other commitments and has roots in Chinese Popular Religion and Confucianism. The spiritual and ethical systems of China emphasize practicing rituals and cultivating virtue, whereas American religious research usually focuses on belief in the supernatural or belonging to a religious tradition. To address this gap in understanding, Family Sacrifices introduces the concept of liyi, translated as ritual propriety and righteous relations. Re-appropriated from its original Chinese usage, liyi offers a new way of understanding Chinese religion and a new lens for understanding the emergence of religious'nones'in the United States. The first book based on national survey data on Asian American religious practices, Family Sacrifices is a seminal text on the fastest-growing racial group in the United States.

A Fox News political analyst tackles some of our communities'toughest challenges with timely insight from his own life: the story of how conservative values helped a kid from the South Side of Chicago find a life of opportunity.“A must-read.”—Brian Kilmeade, bestselling author of Sam Houston and the Alamo AvengersBorn to a mother consumed by drugs and raised by his grandmother in poverty on the South Side of Chicago, Gianno Caldwell saw firsthand how lawmakers from both parties have failed African American voters on issues like poverty, welfare, and education. But as someone who beat the odds growing up under a fear-based mentality that limits what people can achieve, Caldwell believes there's another way.In this groundbreaking book, the Fox News analyst describes his personal journey while detailing a hopeful vision for a nation no longer beholden to identity politics and self-limitations. Trapped within the expectations and traditions of our communities, families, political parties, faith, race, and gender, we fail to challenge our politicians and ourselves to create real change. Now more than ever, we need to confront preconceived notions about the Democrats and Republicans, public policy, and American history. Looking at the obstacles facing urban communities, such as crime, education, and social mobility, Caldwell digs beneath the statistics. By spotlighting the moments that enabled his rise to success, he proffers steps that can help more people overcome the odds—whether through policy reform or the heroic efforts of men and women who are already working to make a difference in their own communities.

“Almond draws on everything from The Grapes of Wrath to the voting practices of his babysitter to dismantle the false narratives about American democracy.” —Cheryl Strayed, international-bestselling author of Wild Like a lot of Americans, Steve Almond spent the weeks after the 2016 election lying awake, in a state of dread and bewilderment. The problem wasn't just the election, but the fact that nobody could explain, in any sort of coherent way, why America had elected a cruel, corrupt, and incompetent man to the Presidency. Bad Stories: What the Hell Just Happened to Our Country is Almond's effort to make sense of our historical moment, to connect certain dots that go unconnected amid the deluge of hot takes and think pieces. Almond looks to literary voices—from Melville to Orwell, from Bradbury to Baldwin—to help explain the roots of our moral erosion as a people. The book argues that Trumpism is a bad outcome arising directly from the bad stories we tell ourselves. To understand how we got here, we have to confront our cultural delusions: our obsession with entertainment, sports, and political parody, the degeneration of our free press into a for-profit industry, our enduring pathologies of race, class, immigration, and tribalism. Bad Stories is a lamentation aimed at providing clarity. It's the book you can pass along to an anguished fellow traveler with the promise, This will help you understand what the hell happened to our country. “Almond holds up literature as a guide through America's age-old moral dilemmas and finds hope for his country in family, forgiveness, and political resistance.” —Booklist

New York Times–Bestseller: “A thinking person's primer for a conservative politics of human flourishing.” —George F. Will, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Conservative Sensibility Arthur C. Brooks, one of the country's leading policy experts and a former president of the American Enterprise Institute, offers a bold new vision for conservatism as a movement for happiness, unity, and social justice—a movement of the head and heart that boldly challenges the liberal monopoly on fairness and compassion. Drawing on years of research, Brooks presents a social justice agenda for a New Right—an inclusive, optimistic movement with a positive agenda to fight poverty, promote equal opportunity, extol spiritual enlightenment, and help everyone lead happier and more fulfilling lives. Firmly grounded in the four “institutions of meaning”—family, faith, community, and meaningful work—it is a call for a government safety net that actually lifts people up and offers a vision of true hope through earned success. Clear, well-reasoned, accessible, and free of vituperative politics, The Conservative Heart is a welcome strategy for conservatives looking for fresh, actionable ideas—and for politically independent citizens who believe that neither side is adequately addressing their needs or concerns. “Brooks calls attention to an image problem facing today's conservatives and offers his solution... highly readable.” —The New York Times Book Review

DreamMakers: Innovating for the Greater Good profiles stories of businesses, cross-sector initiatives and movements and whole communities that are collaborating to create a flourishing world. They all share attitudes and beliefs that transcend: who they are, where they live, or their individual circumstances.The book provides a new definition of success, shares the stories of a number of businesses and communities and examines how the people that lead these successful organizations have made a significant difference. Stories come from people based in very different types of industries and sectors, such as Waka Waka, a company that is helping to address'energy poverty'for millions of families across the globe, Menlo Innovations, a socially innovative technology company which embeds'Joy'as a business proposition, and the hugely successful cross-sector global movement, B Corporation.These people share how they are innovating for the greater good and making their personal hopes and dreams come true. They share their results and what they have learned. Their compelling stories are instructive as well as inspirational. They share the defining moments in their lives that shaped the insights, perspectives and the decisions that lead them on their journey. They go into detail about the actions they are taking to help transform their organizations, communities to enable them to innovate for the greater good. They show us that by taking personal responsibility to change our lives, businesses and our communities, we contribute to changing our world.

'Out of the Ashes is a full-throated, stout-hearted call to arms—soul-stirring,uncompromising, and irresistible.'—ROD DREHER, author of The Benedict Option'Out of the Ashes is an astonishing combination of energy, humor, insight, and exceptional erudition, topped off by a vivid personal style and a special gift for tweaking the nose of secularist nonsense-peddlers. If you're looking for a guide to our current cultural predicament (and how to fix it), one that's sobering and invigorating at the same time, start with this book.'—CHARLES J. CHAPUT, O.F.M. Cap., Archbishop of Philadelphia'Anthony Esolen is one of our nation's best writers because he's one of our best thinkers. Out of the Ashes is vintage Esolen: eloquent, bold, insightful, profound.'— RYAN T. ANDERSON, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation, and author of Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and ReligiousFreedomWhat do you do when an entire civilization is crumbling around you? You do everything. This is a book about how to get started. The Left's culture war threatens America's foundation and its very civilization, warns Esolen in his brand new book, Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture. They will tell you that babies in the womb are fetuses, that gender is a social construct, and that the backbone of society is government not the community. In Out of the Ashes, Esolen outlines his surprisingly simple plan to take back American culture— start at home. Esolen urges us to demand a return to values in our homes, our schools, our churches, and our communities, and to reject political correctness. “We must become tellers of truth again—and people who are willing to hear truths, especially when it hurts to hear them.”

This is a book about the policy process. It discusses the considerations advisers have in mind as they develop and select policy alternatives, the ways each of us might want to think about making decisions, and the lessons we should remember in order to minimize avoidable errors. In writing about his experiences in government, the classroom, and private life, Fein offers insights that apply to people responsible for decisions in many kinds of institutions, at all levels of responsibility.His anecdotes and the situations he describes are drawn from over fifty years of experience in the policy arena. They are not intended to represent either a rounded theory about public administration or a comprehensive treatment of important components of political science. Like most people in the policy arena, Fein came to that work from another discipline-in his case economics. His experience of finding his own way through action and experience rather than through application of theory might appear quaint. But his successes, failures, and the lessons he learned, illuminate the process and may prove useful, even inspirational.Fein is sensitive to the need to move beyond statistics and to present the real world and the faces of real people behind the data. He believes that an effective adviser should bring knowledge and interests that extend beyond the confines of a single discipline, even one as methodologically powerful as economics. Unless the adviser presents a range of choices that have been developed with contributions from many fields of knowledge, the proposed policies are likely to be far too constrained and, at worst, unworkable. His perspective, articulated in this book, is easily summarized: there is more to life and to our nation's welfare than economics. We live in a society, not in an economy.

It's now or never for conservative values.This highly anticipated debut from Matt Walsh of The Blaze demands that conservative voters make a last stand and fight for the moral center of America. The Trump presidency and Republican Congress provides an urgent opportunity to stop the Left's value-bending march to destroy the culture of our country. Republican control of the presidency, senate, and House of Representatives for the next two years is a precious—and fleeting—gift to conservatives. Americans concerned with blocking liberals'swift rethinking of life, marriage, and gender need to capture this moment to turn the tide of history. For years conservatives have worried endlessly about peripheral issues, liberals have been hard at work chipping away at the bedrock of our civilization, and putting a new foundation in its place. New attitudes on abortion, gay marriage, and gender identity threaten to become culture defining victories for progressives—radically altering not just our politics, but dangerously placing Man above God and the self above the good of the whole. What's at stake? The most fundamental elements of society, including how we understand reality itself. In The Unholy Trinity, TheBlaze contributor Matt Walsh draws on Catholic teachings to expose how liberals have attempted, with startling success, to redefine life, marriage, and gender. Abortion redefines human life, gay marriage redefines the family, and the latest theories on gender redefine what it means to be a man or a woman. The potential consequences are dire. If progressivism can bend life, family, and sex to its whims, Walsh argues, it has established relativism over God as the supreme law, and owns the power to destroy western civilization.With insight, candor, and faith, Walsh shows conservatives how to confront liberal arguments, defeat the progressive agenda for good, and reclaim American culture for truth.

The Masses are the Ruling Classes proposes the radical, yet seemingly innocuous view that social policy in the United States is determined by mass consent. Contemporary explanations of decision making in the US typically attribute power over policy making to a variety of hidden forces and illegitimate elites holding the masses innocent of their own problems. Yet the enormous openness of the society and near-universal suffrage sustain democratic consent as more plausible than the alternatives -- conspiracy, propaganda, usurpation, autonomous government, and imperfect pluralism. Contrary to prevailing explanations, government is not either autonomous or out of control, business and wealthy individuals have not usurped control of the nation, large segments of the population are not dispossessed of the vote or of a voice in public affairs, and the media has not formed a conspiracy with Hollywood and liberals to deny Americans their God-given freedoms. Despite the multitude of problems that the nation faces, its citizens are not oppressed. In this pithy yet provocative book, Epstein argues that Democracy in the United States is not progressive but is instead populist, and that the core of the populist ideology is romantic rather than pragmatic.

Drawing upon both classical insights and more recent writings, Hearn provides a compelling account of social breakdown in the United States. The book examines the conditions most responsible for the deterioration of social institutions, notably the family, and of communitarian interdependencies, such as those that support neighborhoods. More specifically, Hearn analyzes the defining forces of liberal modernity--among them, especially, the market economy (favored by the political right) and the democratic welfare state (endorsed by the political left)--whose steady expansion has diminished the social contexts that nurture trust, mutuality, and a robust sense of both personal responsibility and social obligation. The originality of Hearn's book lies in the solutions he proposes, which differ from those rooted in what Hearn calls''the languages of modernity.''Hearn advocates modes that would serve instead to renew solidarity and reclaim social virtue, a repertory of strategies that would answer Emile Durkheim's call for the creation of moral individualism. He assesses various approaches to revitalizing the social settings, the social institutions, and communitarian structures within which people become moral individuals capable of care about and taking responsibility for the fates of others. Readers of this book are invited to draw their own conclusions by relying in larger part on themselves as parents, neighbors, community members, and citizen-participants in a civil society in restoration. As the American Journal of Sociology notes,''the book succeeds in its goals, and it deserves to be widely read.''Frank Hearn was professor of sociology at the State University of New York, College of Cortland, and the author of Reason and Freedom in Sociological Thought and The Transformation of Industrial Organization.

The values, aspirations and social concerns of the American people are diametrically opposed to the hidden agenda of the neo-conservatives. The history of the Skull and Bones society, their Nazi ties, eugenics, wars, the wealthy corporate elite families and their social impact is largely concealed, but it helps explain the erosion of our basic institutions today. They have brought us retail and wholesale violence, compromised media, and atavism regarding torture and murder.

Uncertain. Confused. Overwhelmed.Many Christians feel bombarded by the messages they hear and the trends they see in our rapidly changing world.How can we resist being conformed to the pattern of this world? What will faithfulness to Christ look like in these tumultuous times? How can we be true to the gospel in a world where myths and false visions of the world so often prevail?In This is Our Time, Trevin Wax provides snapshots of twenty-first-century American Life in order to help Christians understand the times. By analyzing our common beliefs and practices (smartphone habits, entertainment intake, and our views of shopping, sex, marriage, politics, and life's purpose), Trevin helps us see through the myths of society to the hope of the gospel.As faithful witnesses to Christ, Trevin writes, we must identify the longing behind society's most cherished myths (what is good, true, beautiful), expose the lie at the heart of these myths (what is false and damaging), and show how the gospel tells a better story – one that exposes the lie but satisfies the deeper longing.

How one man's mid-career crisis turned into an odyssey into the weirder side of American life. Like most of us, Geoff Steward was rocked by 2016's litany of horrors. Unlike most of us, Geoff did something about it. Turning his back on his day job as a lawyer - and the requirement to account for every six minutes of his time - Geoff set off across America in hot pursuit of bears, honky-tonk bars and, above all, nice Americans to restore his faith in the world. Armed only with his blend of waspish wit and mischievous charm, Geoff roamed from New York to Alaska, meeting ordinary Americans such as Joe le Taxi, the former NYPD police officer who was one of the first on the scene at the Twin Towers; Pam and Bob, a paranoid psychiatrist and a failed actor who once saw the back of Meryl Streep's head; and Sheriff Duke of Calhoun County, who reintroduced Geoff to the long (and armed) arm of the law. For anyone at a crossroads, contemplating a temporary or permanent career break, this hilarious travel romp offers a new hope.

Nationally syndicated radio host and columnist Michael Brown provides a handbook for a biblically-based moral and cultural renaissance, revealing that the key to recapturing America's greatness consists in returning to our spiritual and moral roots.America is at a tipping point, and never has this been more apparent than right now. We are in danger of losing our spiritual and moral heritage, making many believe that we have fallen beyond the point of recovery. This book is here to say, that, yes, we have fallen. In fact, fallen much further than we realize, but that our country's best days are ahead—with the help of a radical, moral, and cultural revolution, beginning with the church. This book is a manual for the revolution. On all fronts, Americans are talking about the need for revolution, arguing from the left and the right that “the status quo must go!” This book comes at just the right time, as people are wondering what in the world has happened to our country—from the homes to the college campuses, from the inner cities to the White House, from our national debt to the material found on our computers and TV screens. In clear, compelling prose, Brown covers topics ranging from the sexualization of pop culture to the dumbing down of our schools to the undermining of family structures to a pervasive culture of entitlement, while pointing consistently to the Bible's solution to these issues. A radical call for reformation written with sobriety and hope, Saving a Sick America provides the inspiration and guidance necessary for a moral and cultural revolution.

FROM THE VERY FOUNDING OF OUR NATION, diversity has been one of our greatest strengths but also the greatest source of conflict. In less than a generation, America will become'minority-majority,'and the world economy, already interconnected, will be even more globalized. The stakes for how we handle this evolution couldn't be higher. Will diversity be a source of growth, prosperity, and progress-or perpetual division and strife? America has the potential to realize huge gains economically and socially by more fully capitalizing on diversity, but significant challenges remain and it's a problem that all Americans should be focused on solving. Despite tremendous progress, women and minorities still face barriers to accessing the full promise of the American dream. It doesn't have to be this way. Many of the solutions are right in front of us, and many exceptional, committed Americans are doing their part to make a difference. In the twenty-first century, nations will prosper only insofar as they embrace and celebrate the individuals, organizations, and collective efforts to advance every kind of diversity. Lauren Leader-Chivée believes America must lead the way. In CROSSING THE THINNEST LINE, she explores the state of our diverse union and shares important stories of progress and potential, highlighting those who are crossing dividing lines of race, gender, culture, and political party to build a more united and prosperous nation. Her revelations will transform the discussion and set the agenda for America's progress on these critical issues. A work of originality and ambition, CROSSING THE THINNEST LINE changes our understanding of diversity and offers lessons to change our lives and our country.

The materials in Values of American Society remain the principal resource for understanding Parsons'conception of value systems. His treatment of value systems has been much debated, although poorly understood, in considerable part because Parsons never published his full conception, developed only in these manuscripts. They continue to hold interest for social scientists, both for the carefully developed analytical scheme and for the resulting discussion of American culture and society.

WARNING: This book may inform you, humor you, or enrage you With today's fractious political environment and a splintered Republican party, the time is ripe for an updated edition of popular radiotalk show host Phil Valentine's powerful conservative manifesto. The Conservative's Handbook redefines the Right's stance on fiscal and social issues, and serves as a rallying cry for Americans to fight for the preservation of the traditional values of this great country. This essential guide covers a full array of issues from A–Z, including belief in God, military strength, zero tolerance for crime, the wisdom of Ronald Reagan, and much more...

In the United States today, the term'terrorism'conjures up images of dangerous, outside threats: religious extremists and suicide bombers in particular. Harder to see but all the more pervasive is the terrorism perpetuated by the United States itself, whether through military force overseas or woven into the very fabric of society at home. Henry Giroux, in this passionate and incisive book, turns the conventional wisdom on terrorism upside down, demonstrating how fear and lawlessness have become organizing principles of life in the United States, and violence an acceptable form of social mediation. He addresses the most pressing issues of the moment, from officially sanctioned torture to militarized police forces to austerity politics. Giroux also examines the ongoing degradation of the education system and how young people in particular suffer its more nefarious outcomes. Against this grim picture, Giroux posits a politics of hope and a commitment to accurate-and radical-historical memory. He draws on a long, distinguished career developing the tenets of critical pedagogy to propose a cure for our addiction to terrorism: a kind of'public pedagogy'that challenges the poisoned narratives of'America's dis-imagination machine.'

We live in times when many Americans feel uncertain about the future. We worry about jobs, the economy, and whether the country is on the right path. Strength for Your Future is a reminder that, despite the confusion of our times, there are solid, unshakable principles on which this country—and our futures—can rest. We need to remind ourselves of these principles so we can use them as a compass for our nation and our own lives. Bestselling authors of The Book of Virtues, Bill Bennett and John Cribb believe each generation has the responsibility to explain these vital principles to the next generation to help them understand where the strength of America lies. That conversation will help ensure a promising future for all.Strength for Your Future is the perfect gift to remind us where our true strength rests.Our futures can be bright.

Despite many Americans'triumphant proclamations that Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 elections signified a post-partisan, post-racial society, it seems that the United States is more divided than ever. From the rise of the Tea Party, to strident anti-immigration and anti-welfare movements, to the so-called “war on women”, the United States on its surface appears to be caught in the turmoil of a culture war that has not relented since the Reagan era. But, as John Dombrink writes in The Twilight of Social Conservatism, the conservative backlash seen during Obama's presidency is indicative not of a rising social conservative force in society, but of a waning one.Drawing on demographic research, political polls, contemporary media, and internet commentary, Dombrink demonstrates that the vitality of major social conservative ideas from the culture war era has faded. Support for once-divisive wedge issues, like same-sex marriage and reproductive rights, has increased dramatically, and Americans, particularly young Americans, are less religious and more libertarian than ever before. As he traces the end of the culture wars and the “unwedging” of American politics over the last eight years, Dombrink is quick to caution that social conservatism has not disappeared entirely from view. Nevertheless, the once-prominent “Moral Majority” pushing for dominance in American culture is now reconsidering itself as a minority, and Dombrink argues that it is unlikely that social conservative forces will ever regain the power and potency they once held in American politics. A comprehensive and insightful work, The Twilight of Social Conservatism deftly analyzes the liberalizing trends that created the social and political culture America has today and that portend to the culture America will have in years to come.

From bestselling author of Stop the Coming Civil War, Michael Savage reveals the massive dangers currently leading to the demise of our government.Michael Savage has been warning Americans for decades and now it's here. In GOVERNMENT ZERO: No Borders, No Language, No Culture, Savage sounds the alarm about how progressives and radical Islamists are each unwittingly working towards similar ends: to destroy Western Civilization and remake it in their own respective images. These two dark forces are transforming our once-free republic into a socialist, Third World dictatorship ruled by Government Zero: absolute government and zero representation. Combining in-depth analysis with biting commentary, Savage cuts through mainstream media propaganda to reveal an all-out attack on our borders, language and culture by progressive travelers who have hijacked public policy from national defense to immigration to public education. Find out everything you need to know about this terrifying agenda to weaken the U.S. military, cripple the American economy, subvert basic American liberties such as freedom of speech, and destroy the international world order. There is no time to lose. The Progressive-Islamist agenda has advanced into every public space, from the White House to the military to your local public school. If America is to survive, it has to be stopped. Michael Savage has a plan. Get the inside story before it's too late.

Public service values are too rarely discussed in public administration courses and scholarship, despite recent research demonstrating the importance of these values in the daily decision making processes of public service professionals. A discussion of these very tenets and their relevance to core public functions, as well as which areas might elicit value conflicts for public professionals, is central to any comprehensive understanding of budget and finance, human resource management, and strategic planning in the public sector. Public Service Values is written specifically for graduate and undergraduate courses in public administration, wherever a discussion of public service ideals might enrich the learning experience and offer students a better understanding of daily practice. Exploring the meaning and application of specific values, such as Neutrality, Efficiency, Accountability, Public Service, and Public Interest, provides students and future professionals with a ‘workplace toolkit'for the ethical delivery of public services. Well-grounded in scholarly literature and with a relentless focus on the public service professional, Public Service Values highlights the importance of values in professional life and encourages a more self-aware and reflective public practice. Case studies to stimulate reflection are interwoven throughout the book and application to practice is cemented in a final section devoted to value themes in professional life as well as a chapter dedicated to holding oneself accountable. The result is a book that challenges us to embrace the necessity of public service values in our public affairs curricula and that asks the important questions current public service professionals should make a habit of routinely applying in their daily decision making.

At the dawn of the last century, leading scientists and politicians giddily predicted that science—especially Darwinian biology—would supply solutions to all the intractable problems of American society, from crime to poverty to sexual maladjustment.Instead, politics and culture were dehumanized as scientific experts began treating human beings as little more than animals or machines. In criminal justice, these experts denied the existence of free will and proposed replacing punishment with invasive “cures” such as the lobotomy. In welfare, they proposed eliminating the poor by sterilizing those deemed biologically unfit. In business, they urged the selection of workers based on racist theories of human evolution and the development of advertising methods to more effectively manipulate consumer behavior. In sex education, they advocated creating a new sexual morality based on “normal mammalian behavior” without regard to longstanding ethical and religious imperatives.Based on extensive research with primary sources and archival materials, John G. West's captivating Darwin Day in America tells the story of how American public policy has been corrupted by scientistic ideology. Marshaling fascinating anecdotes and damning quotations, West's narrative explores the far-reaching consequences for society when scientists and politicians deny the essential differences between human beings and the rest of nature. It also exposes the disastrous results that ensue when experts claiming to speak for science turn out to be wrong. West concludes with a powerful plea for the restoration of democratic accountability in an age of experts.

What values do Americans hold dear? What happens when real-world situations cause those values to conflict? To better understand the intellectual map of how American society works, Arthur G. Neal and Helen Youngelson-Neal analyze values prominent in American word and deed. These values appear in our nation's formal documents-rights and privileges prominently emphasized in the US Constitution and inscribed on the Statue of Liberty. They have shaped the historical destiny and, indeed, include those values most extensively propagated by the general population. Using these criteria, the authors identify individualism, the pursuit of happiness, freedom, consumerism, materialism, equality of opportunity, technology, mastery of the environment, quality of marriage, and national unity as the core American values. Core values provide the raw materials for the construction of contemporary society as a moral community, wherever that community is located. Such values are clusters of ideas that are central to self-identities; they generate a sense of collective belonging and membership. As such, core values define the existing social order and advance a set of ideas for depicting a desirable future. The analysis presented here helps us understand contemporary conflicts inherent in the American value system and the problems confronted by Americans as they try to live within the limitations and contradictions of value systems.

David M. Craig traveled across the United States to assess health care access, delivery and finance in this country. He interviewed religious hospital administrators and interfaith activists, learning how they balance the values of economic efficiency and community accountability. He met with conservatives, liberals, and moderates, reviewing their ideas for market reform or support for the Affordable Care Act. He discovered that health care in the US is not a private good or a public good. Decades of public policy and philanthropic service have made health care a shared social good.Health Care as a Social Good: Religious Values and the American Democracy argues that as escalating health costs absorb more and more of family income and government budgets, we need to take stock of the full range of health care values to create a different and more affordable community-based health care system. Transformation of that system is a national priority but Americans have failed to find a way to work together that bypasses our differences. Craig insists that community engagement around the common religious conviction that healing is a shared responsibility can help us achieve this transformation—one that will not only help us realize a new and better system, but one that reflects the ideals of American democracy and the common good.

American social critics in the 1970s, convinced that their nation was in decline, turned to psychoanalysis for answers and seized on narcissism as the sickness of the age. Books indicting Americans as greedy, shallow, and self-indulgent appeared, none more influential than Christopher Lasch's famous 1978 jeremiad The Culture of Narcissism. This line of critique reached a crescendo the following year in Jimmy Carter's “malaise speech” and has endured to this day.But as Elizabeth Lunbeck reveals, the American critics missed altogether the breakthrough in psychoanalytic thinking that was championing narcissism's positive aspects. Psychoanalysts had clashed over narcissism from the moment Freud introduced it in 1914, and they had long been split on its defining aspects: How much self-love, self-esteem, and self-indulgence was normal and desirable? While Freud's orthodox followers sided with asceticism, analytic dissenters argued for gratification. Fifty years later, the Viennese émigré Heinz Kohut led a psychoanalytic revolution centered on a “normal narcissism” that he claimed was the wellspring of human ambition, creativity, and empathy. But critics saw only pathology in narcissism. The result was the loss of a vital way to understand ourselves, our needs, and our desires.Narcissism's rich and complex history is also the history of the shifting fortunes and powerful influence of psychoanalysis in American thought and culture. Telling this story, The Americanization of Narcissism ultimately opens a new view on the central questions faced by the self struggling amid the tumultuous crosscurrents of modernity.

Dear Reader, In February 2013 I gave a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. Standing a few feet from President Obama, I warned my fellow citizens of the dangers facing our country and called for a return to the principles that made America great.Many Americans heard and responded, but our nation's decline has continued. Today the danger is greater than ever before, and I have never shared a more urgent message than I do now.Our growing debt and deteriorating morals have driven us far from the founders'intent. We've made very little progress in basic education. Obamacare threatens our health, liberty, and financial future. Media elitism and political correctness are out of control.Worst of all, we seem to have lost our ability to discuss important issues calmly and respectfully regardless of party affiliation or other differences. As a doctor rather than a politician, I care about what works, not whether someone has an (R) or a (D) after his or her name. We have to come together to solve our problems.Knowing that the future of my grandchildren is in jeopardy because of reckless spending, godless government, and mean-spirited attempts to silence critics left me no choice but to write this book. I have endeavored to propose a road out of our decline, appealing to every American's decency and common sense.If each of us sits back and expects someone else to take action, it will soon be too late. But with your help, I firmly believe that America may once again be “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”Sincerely,Ben Carson

The Essential Guide to Rolling Back the Progressive Assault and Putting America Back on CourseMany Americans are concerned, frightened, angry. The country, it seems, is on the wrong track.But what is the right course for America? Knowing what we stand against is not the same as knowing what we stand for.Just in time, Matthew Spalding provides the plan for translating angst into proper action in this bestselling book. We Still Hold These Truths offers a bracing analysis of how and why we have lost our bearings as a nation and lays out the strategy to rescue our future from arbitrary and unlimited government.

On Christendom's Far Shore describes and explains American society by first illuminating its foundational stones: the traditional western (Judeo-Christian) faith in God and the West's once common understanding of the natural order and the nature and destiny of man. It explores the biblical concepts of faith, paradox, tragedy and grace, time, gender relations, love, work, play, individual and communal responsibilities, freedom, and the Kingdom of Heaven. The book illustrates how these ideas and values underlie more specifically American values and American social and governmental patterns and structures, such as the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom, the creation of families and larger social groups and communities, the mentoring of future generations, and people's understanding of self-governance and how to relate to other nations. On Christendom's Far Shore depicts the present as a time of twilight with the United States caught up in a cataclysmic clash between a traditional understanding of man and of a God-centered universe and a post-modern, existential, man-centered, multicultural worldview that rejects the old values and structures and determinedly seeks a vast restructuring of the nation's social and political order and character.

'Intelligent and highly nuanced… This book may bring tears to your eyes.'-- San Francisco Chronicle Journalist Jon Mooallem has watched his little daughter's world overflow with animals butterfly pajamas, appliquéd owls—while the actual world she's inheriting slides into a great storm of extinction. Half of all species could disappear by the end of the century, and scientists now concede that most of America's endangered animals will survive only if conservationists keep rigging the world around them in their favor. So Mooallem ventures into the field, often taking his daughter with him, to move beyond childlike fascination and make those creatures feel more real. Wild Ones is a tour through our environmental moment and the eccentric cultural history of people and wild animals in America that inflects it—from Thomas Jefferson's celebrations of early abundance to the turn-of the-last-century origins of the teddy bear to the whale-loving hippies of the 1970s. With propulsive curiosity and searing wit, and without the easy moralizing and nature worship of environmental journalism's older guard, Wild Ones merges reportage, science, and history into a humane and endearing meditation on what it means to live in, and bring a life into, a broken world.

This volume presents the single most comprehensive source of knowledge on the career development of racial and ethnic minorities. In so doing, it serves as a resource to graduate students learning about career development and career counseling, counselors and psychologists providing career counseling to racial and ethnic minorities, and psychologists and counselors doing research on the career development of these diverse groups. In recognition of the value of both culture-specific and culture-general information about the vocational psychology of racial and ethnic minorities in the United States, the book has a dual focus. The first eight chapters are devoted to culture-specific information about career development and vocational behavior. The final two chapters synthesize and integrate the materials presented in the eight culture-specific chapters. The text has been divided into three sections. The first section focuses on career theory and research with racial and ethnic minorities. It consists of a review of the relevance and utility of various career theories and models from mainstream vocational psychology to our understanding of the vocational behavior and career development of racial and ethnic minorities -- African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and American Indians. These chapters also summarize other theories from ethnic minority psychology that add to our understanding of minority career development. Finally, they review the existing empirical literature on the career development of these groups and provide a critique of this literature with recommendations for future research. The second section focuses on assessment and intervention with racial and ethnic minorities. The inclusion of the assessment dimension is very important because assessment is such a large and significant component of the career counseling process with these groups. The chapter authors offer guidelines and recommendations for providing career interventions with racial and ethnic minorities. In presenting these guidelines, they also address some of the cultural factors unique to each group that may serve either as facilitators or as inhibitors in the career counseling process. The third section includes commentaries, suggestions, reactions, and syntheses of the previous sections from scholars in the field of vocational psychology. These authors identify and examine the common principles, problems, and themes running across the chapters, and offer suggestions for advancing the field of racial and ethnic minority vocational psychology. This book will become both a valuable source of current information about the vocational psychology of racial and ethnic minorities as well as an inspiration for future research into the career development and vocational behavior of these culturally different individuals.

Over the decades, the lines separating young- middle-aged-, and older adults have blurred, as indicated by a broadening of the appropriate years for making life decisions. Not only are many people marrying later, but some are marrying earlier than ever. Overall, women giving birth later, but some are having children earlier in their lives. Older people are retiring later, but some are retiring at a younger age. The spread or variability (standard deviation) of age-based decisions has increased substantially, giving adults greater freedom from the traditional constraints of age. With these relaxed age norms has come a host of related social problems. The relaxation of age norms for adult decision-making has inadvertently blurred the boundaries between adults and teenagers, between teenagers and children. This generalization of the phenomenon throughout the life cycle is responsible for the adultification of childhood. Eight year old girls are, to an increasing extent, being treated as sexual objects; bullying peaks in the 6th grade; larger numbers of girls are having oral sex or sexual intercourse by the age of 15; the pregnancy rate for girls 13-15 is on the rise; we are in the process of dismantling the juvenile justice system in favor of adult forms of punishment; and more and more children are left without adult supervision in the afternoons, as though they were miniature adults who are capable of raising themselves. Jack Levin is the American Sociological Association's 2009 Winner of the “Public Understanding of Sociology” Award. This short book communicates the power and importance of sociological thinking to major, worldwide social trends. Ideal for use in undergraduate courses such as introductory sociology, social problems, and social change as well as more advanced courses in population, or sociology of aging.

A peculiar feature of our country today, says Michael Barone, is that we seem to produce incompetent eighteen-year-olds but remarkably competent thirty-year-olds. Indeed, American students lag behind their peers in other nations, but America remains on the leading edge economically, scientifically, technologically, and militarily. The reason for this paradox, explains Barone in this brilliant essay, is that “from ages six to eighteen Americans live mostly in what I call Soft America—the parts of our country where there is little competition and accountability. But from ages eighteen to thirty Americans live mostly in Hard America—the parts of American life subject to competition and accountability.” While Soft America coddles, Hard America plays for keeps. Educators, for example, protect children from the rigors of testing, ban dodgeball, and promote just about any student who shows up. But most adults quickly figure out that how they do depends on what they produce. Barone sweeps readers along, showing how we came to the current divide—for things weren't always this way. In fact, no part of our society is all Hard or all Soft, and the boundary between Hard America and Soft America often moves back and forth. Barone also shows where America is headed—or should be headed. We don't want to subject kindergartners to the rigors of the Marine Corps or leave old people uncared for. But Soft America lives off the productivity, creativity, and competence of Hard America, and we have the luxury of keeping part of our society Soft only if we keep most of it Hard.Hard America, Soft America reveals: • How the American situation is unique: In Europe, schooling is competitive and demanding, but adult life is Soft, with generous welfare benefits, short work hours, long vacations, and state pensions• How the American military has reclaimed the Hard goals and programs it abandoned in the Vietnam era• How Hardness drives America's economy—an economy that businesses and economists nearly destroyed in the 1970s by spurning competition • How America's schools have failed because they are bastions of Softness—but how they are finally showing signs of Hardening• The benefits of Softness: How government programs like Social Security were necessary in what was a harsh and unforgiving America• Hard America, Soft America is a stunningly original and provocative work of social commentary from one of this country's most respected political analysts.

Poor education, bad parenting, a sense of entitlement, the'wasteland'of television, and more. These are the symptoms of a culture in decline. While it's easy to recite a litany of our problems, identifying their root causes requires more than the facile commentary offered by media pundits. This in-depth historical analysis of cultural trends in American traces the problems of our current malaise back to two profoundly misguided views of human nature that were pervasive in this country in the twentieth century. The first was hereditarianism, which was highly influential until the end of World War II. The second was humanistic psychology, which emerged after the war as a reaction against negativism. Citing a host of original sources, Ruggiero shows that while the hereditarians advanced the absurdly pessimistic view that biology is destiny, humanistic psychology countered with an absurdly optimistic view of human nature. He also demonstrates that the flaws of both hereditarianism and humanistic psychology are observable in today's resurgent progressivism. Beyond critique, Ruggiero presents a compelling case for restoring the traditional principles and values associated with the Western view of human nature. In this view, human nature is inherently imperfect but has the potential for goodness and wisdom; intelligence is the sum of inherited capacity and performance attained through mental training and acquired knowledge; reason is more reliable than feelings; and self-esteem is the result of actual achievement. Blending thorough research with incisive analysis, Ruggiero shows the relevance of recent intellectual history to today's social problems and charts a course for a better future.

“Cultural instructions.” Everyone who has handled a package of seedlings has encountered that enigmatic advisory. This much water and that much sun, certain tips about fertilizer, soil, and drainage. Planting one sort of flower nearby keeps the bugs away but proximity to another sort makes bad things happen. Young shoots might need stakes, and watch out for beetles, weeds, and unseasonable frosts. It's a complicated business. But at least since Cicero introduced the term cultura animi (“cultivation of the mind or spirit”), such “cultural instructions” have applied as much to the realm of civilization as to horticulture. In this wide-ranging investigation into the vicissitudes of culture in the twenty-first century, the distinguished critic Roger Kimball traces the deep filiations between cultivation as a spiritual enterprise and the prerequisites of political freedom. Drawing on figures as various as James Burnham, Richard Weaver, G. K. Chesterton, Rudyard Kipling, John Buchan, Friedrich von Hayek, and Leszek Kolakowski, Kimball traces the interconnections between what he calls the fortunes of permanence and such ambassadors of anarchy as relativism, multiculturalism, and the socialist-utopian imperative. With his signature blend of wit and erudition, Kimball deftly draws on the resources of art, literature, and political philosophy to illuminate some of the wrong turns and dead ends our culture has recently pursued, while also outlining some of the simple if overlooked alternatives to the various tyrannies masquerading as liberation we have again and again fallen prey to. This rich, rewarding, and intelligent volume bristles with insights into what the nineteenth-century novelist Anthony Trollope called “The Way We Live Now.” Partly an exercise in cultural pathology, The Fortunes of Permanence is also a forward-looking effort of cultural recuperation. It promises to be essential reading for anyone concerned about the direction of Western culture in an age of anti-Western animus and destructive multicultural fantasy.