The Dance with Community The Contemporary Debate in American Political Thought Robert Booth Fowler 224 pages, 6 x 9 American Political Thought Cloth ISBN 978-0-7006-0493-7, $22.50 Paper ISBN 978-0-7006-0623-8, $15.95 Contemporary intellectuals have rushed to embrace the concept of "community." What does this tell us about American political thought? Why are intellectuals uneasy with modern liberal individualism and its institutional policy results? In The Dance with Community intellectual historian Robert Booth Fowler reflects upon these and related questions. "My goal," he writes, "is to present contemporary political thought about community for what it is--a conversation interactive, spirited, and sometimes tough." There have been many interpretations of the much-discussed decline in community spirit. Rather than offer another, Fowler steps back to look at the debate itself. He examines the attention to community in current American political thought and explores the setting of that attention. He also identifies five alternative models of community integral to current debates and sketches a clear image of each--its relationship to others, the logic of its appeal, and its emphases and problems. In each instance he places the model into the larger conversation over alternative communities and the value of community itself. "Provides a comprehensive and perceptive treatment of a multiplicity of perspectives on community. Fowler promotes the idea of existential community as an alternative to both liberalism and the more standard versions of communitarian ideal."--Review of Politics "This is a comprehensive survey of more than a hundred theories--backed by a bibliography of more than 300 entries--in modern American political, sociological, philosophical, and even theological thought. This compendium alone would be worth the price of the book. But Fowler also has a theme that raises profound moral and religious questions. He proposes to chronicle America's discontent with liberal individualism and to reflect on the ways it may be overcome, without submerging the individual in structures that dehumanize."--America "Engagingly written, filled with scores of astute readings and important measured criticism of American communitarians."--Journal of Politics ROBERT BOOTH FOWLER is professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of Enduring Liberalism: American Political Thought Since the 1960s; The Greening of Protestant Thought; and Religion and Politics in America (with Allen Hertzke).   Home | About the Press | Recent Awards | Contact Us | Order New Books: | By Author | By Subject | By Title | By Series Books in Print: | By Author | By Subject | By Title | By Series ©2007 University Press of Kansas 2502 Westbrooke Circle, Lawrence, KS 66045-4444 Phone (785) 864-4155; Fax (785) 864-4586