This book explores the condition of American civil society, evaluates the forces--political, social, demographic, and global--that are operating upon it, and provides critical thinking on how to strengthen it in the decades ahead. Drawing from some of the country's leading thinkers, it looks candidly at the stress fractures on American society-- issues such as the underclass, gender, family, and religion, and concludes with five philosophical perspectives: libertarian, populist, communitarian, traditionalist, and the political and cultural center. Contributors: Don E. Eberly, Michael Joyce, Heather Richardson Higgins, Jeffrey A. Eisenach, William A. Strauss, Neil Howe, William Van Dusen Wishard, Edward A. Schwartz, Denis P. Doyle, Dennis Denenberg, Eric R. Ebeling, John W. Cooper, Collen Sheehan, A. Lawrence Chickenning, Eugene W. Hickok, Jr., Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, David G. Blankenhorn, Glenn C. Loury, T. William Boxx, Os Guinness, Allan C. Carison, Roger L. Conner, Doug Bandow, Harry C, Boyte, and Elizabeth B. Lurie. Co-published with The Commonwealth Foundation.

Politics reinforces a vision of society inhabited by unencumbered private individuals, pampered with promises, fortified with multiplying legal rights, and awash in consumer choices, yet paradoxically, more subject than citizen.

The good society cannot be doled out like just another entitlement; it cannot be pieced together through programs, or stimulated into existence by more tax cuts. It must be achieved through the cooperative efforts of individual Americans from all walks of life.

I am grateful to Don Eberly for challenging us to leave behind the increasingly irrelevant politics of liberal versus conservative, Democrat versus Republican, and to get busy with the important work of our generation: seeking ways to strengthen civil society.

-David Blankenhorn

Americans have for some time now been stumbling along like lost people on a foggy beach at night trying to find their way to a new ideological framework that will preserve the nation’s sense of special mission, but also accommodate the changed realities of a new era. The writers in this book put up beacons to provide guidance. They come from both liberal and conservative traditions, but it is remarkable how little difference political ideology makes. What illuminates their thought is a common recognition that the lost of civic virtue is corroding our society from the inside, and a shared belief that (if we act fast) the center can still hold.

-David Bolt, Columnist, the Philadelphia Inquirer

A strong volume on a vital theme, one important not only to Americans but to all free citizens – and those who would be free citizens – as we enter the 21st century. Readers will find challenging contributions from a variety of philosophical and political perspectives. Recommended for scholars and for all concerned citizens.

-Jean Bethke Elshtain, Professor, University of Chicago