San Antonio College Library

"Partly autobiographical, slightly polemical, and thoroughly challenging, America Against Itself is an in-depth, multifaceted analysis of the pervasive cultural warfare that threatens to undermine the American social structure. Richard John Neuhaus, author of The Naked Public Square, employs a large measure of social criticism, moral philosophy, and religious reflection in analyzing this contemporary Kulturkampf. He addresses the limits and imperatives...

A veteran war correspondent shares examples from his personal life and career to discuss how specific American social groups can benefit from an adherence to the Ten Commandments.

A conservative spokesman provides a defense of the traditional family and its values and explains why single parenthood, cohabitation, gay marriage, and other trends are undermining the family ideals as the fundamental foundation of American society.

A noted Lutheran pastor and theologian from New York City, Neuhaus surveys American religious currents during the past twenty years. Maintaining that the naked public square, which results from the exclusion of popular values from the public forum, will result in the death of democracy, he calls for the reconstruction of a public philosophy grounded in values based in Judeo-Christian religion and suggests that democratic theory and practice must be...

America was built on stories: tales of grateful immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, Horatio Alger-style transformations, self-made men, and the Protestant work ethic. In this new book, renowned sociologist Robert Wuthnow examines these most American of stories--narratives about individualism, immigration, success, religion, and ethnicity--through the eyes of recent immigrants. In doing so, he demonstrates how the "American mythos" has both legitimized...

Kolbenschlag believes that modern social and economic conditions have changed every aspects of the American dream except the dream itself. She delves into the The Wizard of Oz to help describe America as "a nation of spiritual orphans." Dorothy, who is lost in Oz, becomes the symbol of alienation and of expectations and deprivation. She shows how most people in the United States discover that they are orphaned in many ways: by family of origin, by...

"Material wealth is at record levels, yet disturbing social problems reflect a deep spiritual poverty. In this book, social psychologist David G. Myers asks how this paradox has come to be and how we can spark social renewal and dream a new American dream." "Myers explores the research on social ills from the 1960s through the 1990s and concludes that the materialism and radical individualism of this period have cost us dearly, imperiling our children,...

In this timely and impassioned book, Dana Mack exposes a disturbing aspect of American society. Embedded in the very institutions that are supposed to be helping parents in the difficult enterprise of child-rearing is a pronounced anti-family bent. Despite the fuss over "family values," Mack argues, we're living in an increasingly family-hating culture that offers little respect or support for parents - that in fact undermines their efforts at a time...

Argues that American society has become increasingly self-absorbed, focused on self-gratification to the exclusion of higher values, and that the mass narcissism of the culture is based on fear.