A War For The Soul Of America Summary

“The history of America, for better and worse, is largely a history of debates about the idea of America”. The book A War For The Soul of America by Hartman provides its readers with a historical overview of the disputes in America regarding abortion, education, equal rights, and homosexuality, these things becoming central to American political discourse during the late 20th century. Hartman thinks that these problems discussed in this book are not relevant to todays issues but I do not agree with this. Hartmans concluds that “the logic of the culture waars has been exhausted. The metaphor has run its course.” But I think that things such as secularization, equal rights, and abortion remain at the forfront of political quarils in todays society. This book most importantly brings to light the relavence of the opposition cultire in America in the 1960s and how the neoconservatives quickly became emersed in the rising …show more content…
“neoconservatives… might have innovated much of the logic that informed the conservative side of the culture war,” “But the Christian Right formed the demographic bedrock of the conservative culture wars.” The culture of the united states at this time quickly evolved into political battles in which Christian conservatives were set on establishing religious and family values against what they thought of as increasingly secular state led by dangerous liberals. Hartman says that the crucible of the culture wars was the way that the ideals of post-war “normative America” was largely demolished during the 1960s. this was done by a younger generation who wanted social liberation and radical change. “The left considered post-sixties American culture a closer approximation of its ideal form, the right considered it an