America is in the process of overcoming the modern, which is expressed negatively as hyper-individualism, materialism, moral disease, fundamentalism, and nihilistic terrorism. In its positive expression the modern develops beyond itself, into a post-traditional ethic and spirituality in which it becomes possible to affirm life and reappropriate the wisdom of traditions, in a genuinely pluralistic environment of dialogue, continuous growth, and ever-expanding horizons of "liberty and justice for all."

Foreword: Martin E. Marty
Part I America and the Problem of Modernity
Chapter 1: Worldview, Choice, and Dialogue
Chapter 2 Ideologues, Nihilists, and the Depressed - and Relationalists
Chapter 3 Moral Disease and Nothingness:
Chapter 4 Nothingness and Gift: Eleven Glimpses
Part II Relational Worldview
Chapter 5 Reappropriating Tradition
Chapter 6 Dialogue as Democratic Possibility: Reappropriating the Modern 
Chapter 7 What We Can Learn From/With China
Chapter 8 Dialogue, Development, and Pluralism
Part III Reviving Civic Virtue
Chapter 9 A Liberal Confession
Chapter 10 American Clash and Revival
Chapter 11 Pragmatism Revisited
Chapter 12 Democratic Life, American Hope: A Meditation on/from the Practical Turn
Chapter 13 Liberal Education as Democratic Practice
Conclusion: Democracy Somewhere