Product Description

Meanwhile, the authors' antidote to the American sickness--a quest for democratic community that draws on our diverse civic and religious traditions--has contributed to a vigorous scholarly and popular debate. Attention has been focused on forms of social organization, be it civil society, democratic communitarianism, or associative democracy, that can humanize the market and the administrative state. In their new Introduction the authors relate the argument of their 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #300998 in Books
• Published on: 1996-05-13
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 376 pages

From Amazon.com
Habits of the Heart is required reading for anyone who wants to understand how religion contributes to and detracts from America's common good. An instant classic upon publication in 1985, it was reissued in 1996 with a new introduction describing the book's continuing relevance for a time when the country's racial and class divisions are being continually healed and ripped open again by religious people. Habits of the Heart describes the social significance of faiths ranging from "Sheilaism" (practiced by a California nurse named Sheila) to conservative Christianity. It's thoroughly readable, theologically respectful, and academically irreproachable. --Michael Joseph Gross

Review
""Habits of the Heart is, rare among works of scholarly origin, an outspoken and even emotional plea for attention to an argument, and a danger. Its power is in the passion of its analysis, the vision of us . . . narrowing the gap between the inordinate rewards of success and the not less inordinate punishments for failure, in economic terms, in the society."--"Los Angeles Times

George Keller, Baltimore Sun
"Habits of the Heart holds up a mirror to American values, makes us examine ourselves, and dares us to question where our society is going. [It] will make you question your own habits and look into your own heart. Not many books possess that ability."