America's current transformation from an industrial to a new information-based culture presents new challenges as well as new perspectives on old debates. This book offers a comprehensive survey of America's changing values. It examines notions of American exceptionalism and how the 'melting pot' is coping with race relations and changing demographics; it assesses the agenda of government, the domestic and global constraints, and how social exclusion can be tackled. Current changes in the US are likely to be a harbinger for other societies, and the authors examine new models of civic society, of learning and of reconfiguring social values for a fast-changing world.

OTTO NEWMAN is Adjunct Professor of Sociology at San Diego State University, where he has worked since 1987. He was previously Chair of the Department of Social Sciences at South Bank University, London, from 1970 to 1987 and Lecturer at Stirling University, Scotland, from 1968 to 1970. He is author of Gambling: Hazard and Reward; The Challenge of Corporatism; and numerous articles, research reports and reviews. He was an executive of the British Sociological Association. RICHARD DE ZOYSA is Senior Lecturer in Politics at South Bank University, London. He has held previous appointments in Sweden, the United States and has lectured at the Sorbonne in Paris. He has published in India, Sweden, the USA and the UK.