Behind a smokescreen of “preparing students for the new industrial economy,” early progressives had political control in mind. America’s original schools didn’t just make kids memorize facts or learn skills; they taught them to think freely and arrive at wisdom. They assigned the classics, inspired love of God and country, and raised future citizens that changed the world forever.

We all know how identities - notably, those of nationality, class, culture, race, and religion - are at the root of global conflict, but the more elusive truth is that these identities are created by conflict in the first place. In provocative, entertaining chapters, Kwame Anthony Appiah interweaves keen-edged argument with engrossing historical tales and reveals the tangled contradictions within the stories that define us.

How did the world arrive at its current, disorienting state of identity politics, and how should the church respond? Historian Carl R. Trueman discusses how influences ranging from traditional institutions to technology and pornography moved modern culture toward an era of "expressive individualism." Investigating philosophies from the Romantics, Nietzsche, Marx, Wilde, Freud, and the New Left, he outlines the history of Western thought to the distinctly sexual direction of present-day identity politics and explains the modern implications of these ideas.

In The Coming Tsunami, pastor and cultural scholar Dr. Jim Denison addresses the gravest threat Christians in America have ever faced — four cultural tidal waves threatening to submerge Christians in America and the biblical morality they proclaim. Through proactive, biblical steps, he helps us redeem these challenges so that we can live the way Jesus calls us to live.

What is feminism? In this short, accessible primer, Bell Hooks explores the nature of feminism and its positive promise to eliminate sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. With her characteristic clarity and directness, Hooks encourages readers to see how feminism can touch and change their lives - to see that feminism is for everybody.

At a critical time in American life, Parker J. Palmer looks with realism and hope at how to deal with our political tensions for the sake of the common good - without the shouting, blaming, or defaming so common in our politics today.

In 2001, Kathy Baldock, a straight conservative evangelical Christian, met Netto Montoya, a lesbian Native American, on the local hiking trails near her home in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Their friendship challenged Baldocks cultural and religious beliefs about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.

Only once in the last 250,000 years have humans stumbled upon a way to lift ourselves out of the endless cycle of poverty, hunger, and war that defines most of history. If democracy, individualism, and the free market were humankind’s destiny, they should have appeared and taken hold a bit earlier in the evolutionary record. The emergence of freedom and prosperity was nothing short of a miracle.

Among the unsettling social shifts in the wake of 9/11 was the global attention paid to Islam. Here in the United States, we became divided, often sadly along partisan lines, between those who believed every Muslim was a potential threat and those who believed no Muslim could do wrong. For conservative Wisconsin native and former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, these radical times meant facing a new reality as a devout Muslim and a patriot - a certain betrayal within his faith.

Through a nationwide telephone survey of 2,000 people and an additional 200 face-to-face interviews, Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith probed the grassroots of white evangelical America. They found that despite recent efforts by the movement's leaders to address the problem of racial discrimination, evangelicals themselves seem to be preserving America's racial chasm. In fact, most white evangelicals see no systematic discrimination against blacks. But the authors contend that it is not active racism.

There is a tug of war going on for the future of America. At one end of the rope are those who think America is a secular nation; at the other end are those who believe religion is at the root of our country's foundation. In this audio release of the thought-provoking America's Real War, renowned leader and speaker Rabbi Daniel Lapin encourages America to reembrace the Judeo-Christian values on which our nation was founded and logically demonstrates why those values are crucial to America's strength in the new millennium.

How do we effectively confront racial injustice? We need to move beyond talking about racism and start equipping ourselves to fight against it. In this follow-up to the New York Times bestseller The Color of Compromise, Jemar Tisby offers an array of actionable items to confront racism. How to Fight Racism introduces a simple framework—the A.R.C. Of Racial Justice—that teaches listeners to consistently interrogate their own actions and maintain a consistent posture of anti-racist behavior.

From the man who became Pope Francis: Jorge Mario Bergoglio shares his thoughts on religion, reason, and the challenges the world faces in the 21st century with Abraham Skorka, a rabbi and biophysicist. This book brings together a series of these conversations, in which both men talked about various theological and worldly issues, including God, fundamentalism, atheism, abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, and globalization.

What have you always wanted to know about Indians? Do you think you should already know the answers-or suspect that your questions may be offensive? In matter-of-fact responses to over 120 questions, both thoughtful and outrageous, modern and historical, Ojibwe scholar and cultural preservationist Anton Treuer gives a frank, funny, and sometimes personal tour of what's up with Indians, anyway.

The Plot to Change America exposes the myths that help identity politics perpetuate itself. This book reveals what has really happened, explains why it is urgent to change course, and offers a strategy to do so. Though we should not fool ourselves into thinking that it will be easy to eliminate identity politics, we should not overthink it, either. Identity politics relies on the creation of groups and then on giving people incentives to adhere to them. If we eliminate group making and the enticements, we can get rid of identity politics.