Description:
America Against Itself is an in-depth, multi-faceted analysis of the pervasive cultural warfare that threatens to undermine the American social structure.
Partly autobiographical, slightly polemical, and thoroughly challenging, America Against Itself is an in-depth, multi-faceted 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 of politics as well as religion's role in defining our common culture. Among the subjects tackled are the abortion debate, the urban underclass, and the nature of altruism in a world that rewards uncaring. In addition, Neuhaus reflects on his role in "The Movement" of the 1960s, and how, despite its idealistic intentions, it went so wildly wrong.
America Against Itself is not a prolonged lamentation against the prevailing moral and intellectual decline that seems characteristic of the contemporary era. Instead, Neuhaus presents a careful and sympathetic analysis of why we have turned against the highest ideals of the American experiment, and issues a bracing call to turn anew to the challenging vision of "a new order for the ages."
This book is a disturbing, but ultimately hopeful, testament from one of America's foremost public intellectuals, whose passage through three tumultuous decades proves a valuable qualification for probing the complex issue of conflicting moralities struggling to exist in a representative democracy.
Brief description:
Father Richard John Neuhaus is one of the foremost authorities on religion in the contemporary world and president of the Institute on Religion and Public Life in New York. He is editor-in-chief of First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, and author of, among other books, Death on a Friday Afternoon: Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus From the Cross and The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America.
Review Quotes:
"An even-tempered ... critique of the American soul as it exhibits itself on the different fronts of our 'culture war.' Neuhaus traces the traumas of our social and political life back to their ontological roots and supplies a prognosis that will undoubtedly scandalize as many as it sways.... His thesis is original enough to compel attention and forceful enough to provoke thought." --Kirkus Reviews