In 1991, James Davison Hunter became the first to describe what now seems obvious to everyone: that America is deeply divided by a conflict of two moral visions, two tendencies he called “progressivist” and “traditionalist.” For about a decade, Hunter debated other social scientists who disagreed with his thesis that this conflict between moral visions had become the defining feature of American political and public life. Now more than three decades later, “culture wars” has become the dominant paradigm for understanding American political culture and its congruences.

The book examines how the issues that divide America (abortion, funding for the arts, women’s rights, gay rights, court-packing, etc.) are not isolated from one another but are, in fact, part of a fabric of conflict which constitutes nothing short of a struggle over the meaning of America. Culture Wars presents a riveting account of how Christian fundamentalists, Orthodox Jews, and conservative Catholics have joined forces in a fierce battle against their progressive counterparts as each side struggles to gain control over such fields of conflict as the family, art, education, law, and politics.

Praise

  • “An extraordinary intellectual achievement—a careful and immensely constructive analysis of the sources of the moral and cultural conflicts which continue to confront us in late twentieth-century America.” —Robert Coles, author of The Spiritual Life of Children

  • “Hunter makes an indispensable contribution to the understanding of the sad state of public argument in America and gives us valuable suggestions for its improvement.” —Robert N. Bellah, coauthor of Habits of the Heart

  • “Hunter’s careful study removes any lingering doubt about the depth of the ideological divisions in American society… [A] valuable corrective to the perceived wisdom that America is a classless society united by a broad ‘middle-class’ consensus.” —Christopher Lasch, author of The Culture of Narcissism

  • “A rare book… It succeeds in both informing the reader and enlarging a debate that has become central not only to politics, but to such fundamental matters as dealings between man and woman, orthodox and secularist, and liberal and conservative.” —Thomas Byrne Edsall, Washington Monthly

Culture Wars

The Struggle to Define America

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