This book is an excellent, comprehensive account of the ways in which nations and nationhood have evolved over time. Successful in hardback, it is now available in paperback for a student audience.

With a new afterword by the author, this classic analysis of Western liberal capitalist society contends that capitalism—and the culture it creates—harbors the seeds of its own downfall by creating a need among successful people for personal gratification—a need that corrodes the work ethic that led to their success in the first place. With the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a new world order, this provocative manifesto is more relevant than ever.

Offering a rereading of the American past and a critique of the present, an analysis of immigration warns that our ignorant fear of nationalism--not assimilation of new immigrants--is the real danger that could destroy a healthy, emerging Americanism.