Shapiro argues that Western 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. These values gave us the birth of science, the dream of progress, human rights, prosperity, peace, and artistic beauty. Jerusalem and Athens were the foundations of the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence; civilizations that rejected Jerusalem and Athens have collapsed into dust. Now we are in the process of abandoning Judeo-Christian values and Greek natural law, favoring instead moral subjectivism and the rule of passion. And we are watching our civilization collapse ... -- adapted from information provided

From the Publisher: A cultural history of the last forty years, The Age of American Unreason focuses on the convergence of social forces-usually treated as separate entities-that has created a perfect storm of anti-rationalism. These include the upsurge of religious fundamentalism, with more political power today than ever before; the failure of public education to create an informed citizenry; and the triumph of video over print culture. Sparing neither the right nor the left, Jacoby asserts that Americans today have embraced a universe of "junk thought" that makes almost no effort to separate fact from opinion

In 1992, most pundits accepted the famous line of the Clinton campaign that the election was about "the economy, stupid". But in 1994, with the economy flourishing, voters dumped the Democrats. What happened? Why? What is likely to happen next? Ben Wattenberg answers with Values Matter Most, a book that is, at once, a fascinating and lively inside political story, a nuanced portrait of America in the mid-nineties, and a stark political thesis. In the controversial 1970 bestseller The Real Majority, Wattenberg and Richard Scammon argued that "the social issue" - now often called "values" - including crime, welfare, race, discipline, drugs, promiscuity and prayer - had suddenly become coequal with economics as the key to voter behavior. They warned Democrats to pay attention, or they would lose. They didn't, and they did. Now, after 25 years of social deterioration in America, Wattenberg dramatically advances the argument. He says that the concern about values has become the number one issue, and properly so. Wattenberg vividly narrates the history of the values issue in American politics. He says that whichever party and candidates now best understand the social concerns of a restless electorate, and act upon these issues, will be rewarded in national, state, and local elections in 1996 and beyond. He caps his analysis with strategy lessons for Republicans, Democrats, and potential third (or even fourth or fifth) party candidates.

In this landmark book, sociologist Viviana Zelizer traces the emergence of the modern child, at once economically "useless" and emotionally "priceless," from the late 1800s to the 1930s. Having established laws removing many children from the marketplace, turn-of-the-century America was discovering new, sentimental criteria to determine a child's monetary worth. The heightened emotional status of children resulted, for example, in the legal justification of children's life insurance policies and in large damages awarded by courts to their parents in the event of death. A vivid account of changing attitudes toward children, this book dramatically illustrates the limits of economic views of life that ignore the pervasive role of social, cultural, emotional, and moral factors in our marketplace world.

In a series of concise portraits of America's founders, the author of Money and the Meaning of Life examines how the spiritual beliefs and vision of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and others shaped American history and culture and assesses the influence of the spiritual traditions of African slaves, Native Americans, and early mystical communities on early America. 30,000 first printing.

"At what point did the British develop their mania for interiors, wallpaper, furniture and decoration? Why have the middle classes developed so passionate an attachment to the contents of their homes? This book offers surprising answers to these questions, uncovering the roots of today's consumer society and investigating the forces that shape consumer desires. Richly illustrated, Household Gods chronicles one hundred years of British interiors, focusing on class, choice, shopping and possessions. Exploring a wealth of unusual records and archives, Deborah Cohen locates the source of modern consumerism and materialism in early nineteenth-century religious fervour. Over the course of the Victorian era, consumerism shed the taint of sin to become the pre-eminent means of expressing individuality. The book ranges from musty antique shops to luxurious emporia, from suburban semi-detached houses to elegant city villas, from husbands fretting about mantelpieces to women appropriating home decoration as a feminist cause. It uncovers a society of consumers whose identities have become entwined with the things they put in their houses"--OCLC

"The Transformational Decade shows the transformation that took place in American life from the attack on the World Trade Center to the emergence of the Obama presidency. It is not a strict history, but rather snapshots of a decade that has fundamentally altered perceptions of the United States. In some respects, this book is modeled after Frederick Lewis Allen's Only Yesterday and Since Yesterday, acclaimed books that sought to capture the spirit of the 1920s and '30s. London sees the period from 2001 to 2008 as "post yesterday," a period that broke with the past, challenged the essence of the free market, and contested America's role on the world stage. In an effort to limn these snapshots from recent history, London has written several "decade" books: The Overheated Decade, The Counterfeit Decade, and The Decade of Denial. This book, The Transformational Decade, differs in that it represents a separation from the past. London illuminates a decade that he considers to be a new and more frightful period than any in recent American history."--Publisher's website.