Description
Despite the economic boom of the past decade, America is beleaguered by crime, drug abuse, racial tensions, poverty, the erosion of vital institutions such as the family and public education, a diminished sense of vision and direction, and the decline of community life.At the heart of these problems is a deterioration of America’s “heroic ideal,” or understanding of what it means to be heroic.
From the Founding Fathers and the legendary frontiersmen and cowboys, to astronauts, athletes, and other contemporary heroes, Michael Gellert profiles the development of the American heroic ideal. This central component of our national character is examined against the backdrop of three centuries of American history. He reveals how this principle has expressed the nation’s aspiration toward greatness and its sense of identity and purpose. He describes how our national character has influenced this ideal and pinpoints what has caused it to go awry. Although America’s original heroic ideal as expounded by the nation’s founders had a powerful redeeming and guiding vision, the nation is at a loss as to what this vision means in a twenty-first century context.
America is at a crossroads where it can either confront its problems and shortcomings or ignore them and risk falling by history’s wayside. The Fate of America suggests what the nation must focus on in its public discourse and in the education of its citizens in order to meet the challenges of history.
