As debate rages over the widening and destructive gap between the rich and the rest of Americans, Claude Fischer and his colleagues present a comprehensive new treatment of inequality in America. They challenge arguments that expanding inequality is the natural, perhaps necessary, accompaniment of economic growth. They refute the claims of the incendiary bestseller "The Bell Curve" (1994) through a clear, rigorous re-analysis of the very data its authors, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, used to contend that inherited differences in intelligence explain inequality. "Inequality by Design" offers a powerful alternative explanation, stressing that economic fortune depends more on social circumstances than on IQ, which is itself a product of society. More critical yet, patterns of inequality must be explained by looking beyond the attributes of individuals to the structure of society. Social policies set the "rules of the game" within which individual abilities and efforts matter. And recent policies have, on the whole, widened the gap between the rich and the rest of Americans since the 1970s.

Not only does the wealth of individuals' parents shape their chances for a good life, so do national policies ranging from labor laws to investments in education to tax deductions. The authors explore the ways that America--the most economically unequal society in the industrialized world--unevenly distributes rewards through regulation of the market, taxes, and government spending. It attacks the myth that inequality fosters economic growth, that reducing economic inequality requires enormous welfare expenditures, and that there is little we can do to alter the extent of inequality. It also attacks the injurious myth of innate racial inequality, presenting powerful evidence that racial differences in achievement are the consequences, not the causes, of social inequality. By refusing to blame inequality on an unchangeable human nature and an inexorable market--an excuse that leads to resignation and passivity--"Inequality by Design" shows how we can advance policies that widen opportunity for all.

First published in 1985, Habits of the Heart continues to be one of the most discussed interpretations of modern American society, a quest for a democratic community that draws on our diverse civic and religious traditions. In a new introduction Robert N. Bellah relates the arguments of the book both to the current realities of American society and to the growing debate about the country's future. With this new edition one of the most influential books of recent times takes on a new immediacy.

"This interesting volume of essays on contemporary religion and its ambivalent relationship to modernity not only serves as a testimony to the intellectual influence of Robert Bellah, it establishes a new school of comparative religious and social thought. This Bellahian school--at the intersection of sociological, theological, and contemporary philosophical thinking--has roots in Durkheim and Weber, borrows insights from Marx, Foucault, and Bourdieu, and finds its clearest voice in the writings of Bellah himself. The essays by some of Bellah's colleagues and former students that have been gathered in this volume address some of the most sagacious of these Bellahian themes: the religious demension of contemporary civil societies, the relationship between religious and capitalist values, the cultural critique of modernity, and the moral visions that hold a promise of civic renewal."--Mark Juergensmeyer, author of "Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (California, 2000).

"This highly readable collection of original, thought-provoking essays by leading scholars provides fresh insights into the issues that Robert Bellah has addressed so fruitfully in his long career. Readers will learn much about such issues as how Calvinism contributed to political revolution, why democracies require an enlarged sense of political community, how the religious foundations of Japan and the United States differ, and what it means to be a Christian and an American."--Benton Johnson, coauthor of "Vanishing Boundaries: The Religion of Protestant Baby Boomers (1994) and author of "Functionalism in Modern Sociology: Understanding Talcott Parsons (1975)

Talk of love surrounds us, and romance is a constant concern of popular culture. Ann Swidler's "Talk of Love" is an attempt to discover how people find and sustain real love in the midst of that talk, and how that culture of love shapes their expectations and behaviour in the process. To this end, Swidler conducted extensive interviews with middle Americans and wound up offering us something more than an insightful exploration of love: "Talk of Love" is also a compelling study of how much our culture affects even the most personal of our everyday experiences.

THE GOOD SOCIETY examines how many of our institutions- from the family to the government itself- fell from grace, and offers concrete proposals for revitalizing them.