Albert Einstein said, though no one can verify when or where he said it, that the problems facing us cannot be solved at the level of thinking that created them. If that is so, then it must surely be true of global problems. To solve global problems we need a new level of thinking. In Wide as the World: Cosmopolitan Identity and Democratic Dialogue Jack Crittenden examines and brings to life in a dialogue between two fictional characters this new level of thinking: dialectical thinking. Found through psychological research to be a higher-order thinking characteristic of advanced adult development, dialectical thinking transcends but embraces and integrates difference and ambiguity. It permits those using it to expand their perspectives, their worldviews, and even their identities to cosmopolitan or worldwide proportions. Crittenden suggests that when built in as part of the structures of democratic dialogue, dialectical thinking can help elected officials and ordinary citizens alike, from local meetings to global institutions, address and solve our most vexing problems

The philosopher-educator John Dewey wrote that 'Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.' In an America where every vote--though considered equally--counts for very little, Democracy's Midwife offers the vision of a new kind of democratic system: a deliberative democracy energized by an educated citizenry. Jack Crittenden's excellent new study looks behind the modern democratic rhetoric to reveal a system of government that excludes citizens from participating directly in decision-making. The book combines a thorough examination of the theoretical underpinnings of democratic education with radical solutions for the overhaul of a system of civic education dating back to the Founding Fathers. Democracy's Midwife is both a denunciation of an education system that has failed to prepare future citizens for participation in public life and a timely blueprint for the creation of a civic-minded electorate prepared for the responsibility of self-government.

How making up our minds and the makeup of our minds can help us live better and die better. We live in a climate where feelings trump reason and evidence. Lies are treated as "alternative facts." At the same time, it seems our culture does not want us to treat altered or higher states of consciousness seriously. Focusing both on evidence and on such states of consciousness can reorient our attitudes. Jack Crittenden asks the reader to think about life after death, about the basis of morality and the essence of spirituality, about the meaning of happiness, about the path of dying, and about the proper role of work in our lives and how education connects to that role. What if our memories, thoughts, and whole personality lived on after we died? What if morality were based on reasons and evidence and not on God and sacred texts? What if happiness lies not in what we think, how we feel, and what we long for, but in living in the present and in the dying of the self itself? Experiences of and the evidence on altered and higher states of consciousness can lead us to better lives and better deaths.

Jack Crittenden examines the debate in political theory about the true conception of human nature. On the one hand is the concept of the liberal self which is self-contained, atomistic, even selfish; on the other hand is the notion of the communitarian self which is socially situated and defined in part by one's community. Crittenden argues that neither view is acceptable and draws on recent psychological research to develop a theory of `compound individuality'. The compound individual retains the liberal emphasis on personal autonomy, without the association of autonomy with self-sufficiency. Crittenden concludes by reflecting on what kinds of political institutions will invite commitment and reflection from `compound individuals'.