"One of our leading public intellectuals traces the origin of a set of ideas about identity and social justice that is rapidly transforming America-and explains why it will fail to accomplish its noble goals"--

The author shows how the development of modern psychotherapy is intertwined with that of the United States and how it has changed the way Americans view events and themselves.

Explores the consequences of extreme personal differences between parents and children, describing his own experiences as a gay child of straight parents while evaluating the circumstances of people affected by physical, developmental, or cultural factors that divide families.

House Made of Dawn, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969, tells the story of a young American Indian named Abel, home from a foreign war and caught between two worlds: one his father's, wedding him to the rhythm of the seasons and the harsh beauty of the land; the other of industrial America, a goading him into a compulsive cycle of dissipation and disgust.