America's Identity Crisis

America's Identity Crisis is an in-depth historical and cultural study of what Jung called America's "heroic ideal," the driving force of its national character. In shaping the American experience, this ideal is very much the source of both America's greatness and its problems. Michael Gellert argues that this ideal cannot adequately meet the complex challenges of the modern world, yet America remains fixated upon it. Although the nation's original heroic ideal as articulated by its founders had a powerful redeeming and guiding vision, Americans are at a loss as to what this means in a contemporary context. The author explores what the nation must focus on in its public discourse and in the education of its citizens in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century.