In Culture Wars: The Struggle To Define America James Davison Hunter analyzes the heated moral battle being waged today between adherents of orthodoxy and advocates of progressivism. These two camps have taken hostile positions as they struggle to win the soul of America. Signs of this war of values have been evident in the heated confrontations over abortion, gay rights, classroom education, the attacks on the film The Last Temptation of Christ, and in the crusade to have music records labeled.
The public battle between the two groups has been magnified by media coverage. Lately, it has become more strident than ever. Each camp, with its own conception of moral authority, freedom, community, and civic responsibility, wants to control the shape and substance of American public life. Hunter criticizes both sides for what he terms "an implicit and yet imperious disregard for the goal of a common life."
The book concludes with four suggestions which could help move the public debate on the moral course of the nation to a higher ground. Culture Wars is a watershed work of cultural criticism.