One Nation, After All : What Americans Really Think About God, Country, Family, Racism, Welfare, Immigration, Homosexuality, Work, The Right, The Left and Each Other - Softcover

Wolfe, Alan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014027572X ISBN 13: 9780140275728

Publisher: Penguin Books, 1999

Synopsis

Concluding that all cultural divides are exaggerated, this monumental critique of American culture finds a remarkable uniformity of opinion among middle class Americans on a wide variety of supposedly divisive issues. Reprint.

About this title

Review:

Few academics write as crisply as the sociologist Alan Wolfe, and even fewer are capable of making the penetrating insights that sprinkle the pages of this engaging study of suburban psychology. Based on 200 extensive interviews with middle-class Americans, Wolfe's study uncovers a striking tolerance. Americans, according to the author, can be quite harsh when judging their own behavior, but they exhibit a hands-off approach with others. (Wolfe also cites an exception to this rule: homosexuality.) Americans are not torn apart by any kind of cultural war, contrary to the claims of intellectuals on both the right and left. Instead, writes Wolfe, they are a practical people willing to accept social change. Forget the shallow opinion polls that appear every few days in the news. One Nation, After All comes closer to the real pulse of the American people than just about any other you will find.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Sociologist (Boston Univ.) and social critic par excellence, Wolfe (Marginalized in the Middle, not reviewed, etc.) scores again with this thorough, edifying, and engrossing study of the fabled but elusive American middle class. Based on his Middle Class Morality Project, a group of 200 interviews conducted by Wolfe himself in eight middle-class suburbs of four citiesAtlanta (DeKalb and Cobb counties), Boston (Brookline and Medford), San Diego (Eastlake and Rancho Bernardo), and Tulsa (Broken Arrow and Sand Springs)this intimate study is a smooth read. Wolfe is master of his material, and his easy, levelheaded style keeps you reading to the end, even if only to hear the ``silent majority's'' thoughtful answers to his pointed questions about religion (``quiet faith'' is the rule), welfare (good in principle, but poorly executed), racism (``Whites are against affirmative action, blacks tend to be for it, and Hispanics are split down the middle''), patriotism (robust, but skeptical), and family (``let people make those decisions that best fit themselves''). Wolfe's bottom line is that ``there are strong divisions in middle-class America . . . people in Brookline clearly do not think the same way as people in Tulsa.'' He grants, therefore, that America is experiencing a culture war, but ``one that is being fought primarily by intellectuals, not by most Americans themselves.'' Americans are far less polarized politically than pundits would have us believe, and lean instead, toward a ``sensible center,'' where compromise and tolerance guide public life. Americans share a strong libertarian streak, or as Wolfe couches it, ``respect for moral freedom and nonjudgmentalism cut so deep'' among middle-class Americans that they are willing to accept even the things they disapprove of most strongly (e.g., homosexuality, one of the most widely reviled). Wolfe's round-up is an absolute must for anyone who wants or, in every politician's case, needs to know how Americans think. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 014027572X
• ISBN 13: 9780140275728
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368