This book provides a comprehensive investigation of the political dimensions of civil religion in the United States. By employing an original social-psychological theory rooted in semiotics, it offers a qualitative and quantitative empirical examination of more than fifty years of political rhetoric. Further, it presents two in-depth case studies that examine how the cultural, totemic sign of 'the Founding Fathers' and the signs of America's sacred texts (the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence) are used in attempts to link partisan policy positions with notions that the country collectively holds sacred. The book's overarching thesis is that America's civil religion serves as a discursive framework for the country's politics of the sacred, mediating the demands of particularistic interests and social solidarity through the interaction of social belief and institutional politics like elections and the Supreme Court. The book penetrates America's unique political religiosity to reveal and unravel the intricate ways in which politics, political institutions, religion and culture intertwine in the United States.

This book provides a comprehensive investigation of the political dimensions of civil religion in the United States. By employing an original social-psychological theory rooted in semiotics, it offers a qualitative and quantitative empirical examination of more than fifty years of political rhetoric. Further, it presents two in-depth case studies that examine how the cultural, totemic sign of 'the Founding Fathers' and the signs of America's sacred texts (the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence) are used in attempts to link partisan policy positions with notions that the country collectively holds sacred. The book's overarching thesis is that America's civil religion serves as a discursive framework for the country's politics of the sacred, mediating the demands of particularistic interests and social solidarity through the interaction of social belief and institutional politics like elections and the Supreme Court. The book penetrates America's unique political religiosity to reveal and unravel the intricate ways in which politics, political institutions, religion and culture intertwine in the United States.

Madness and Insanity is the story of David a recent graduate and embarrassment to his father. After an untimely arrest he is exiled to Manchester, England, a place notorious for its culture of drunken fornication and music. There, David is assimilated into an eccentric group of international students and swept into a farcical lifestyle of drugs, casual sex and indifference. David terms this lifestyle Madness and Insanity and begins flirting with its extremes, ultimately finding himself planning the robbery of a scientific lab to win the affection of an aloof, lab assistant he fancies. Faced with the debacle of the robbery and the increasing role of drugs and alcohol in his life, David quixotically embarks on an adventure to come to grips with Madness and Insanity. He searches for its meaning in a escalating combination of drugs, alcohol and self-deprivation that nearly kills him. He ends up however, discovering something quite unexpected.