This book seeks to explain why trust, in decline in the US, matters for societies.

1. Trust and the good life; 2. Strategic trust and moralistic trust; 3. Counting (on) trust; 4. The root of trust; 5. Trust and experience; 6. Stability and change in trust; 7. Trust and consequences; 8. Trust and the democratic temperament; Epilogue: trust and the civic community.

Eric M. Uslaner is Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland-College Park. He is Senior Research Fellow, Center for American Law and Political Science, Southwest University of Political Science and Law, Chongqing, China. He is also Honorary Professor of Political Science at Aarhus University (Denmark) and in 2011 and 2012 was named one of 100 top Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior by Trust Across America (http://www.trustacrossamerica.org/offerings-thought-leaders.shtml )He has received grants from the National Science Foundation and the Russell Sage and C.V. Starr Foundations. He was the Fulbright Distinguished Professor of American Political Science at the Australian National University, Canberra in 2010 and in 1981-82 was Fulbright Professor of American Studies and Political Science at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.