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These essays, by contributors from fields ranging from social and political theory to historical sociology and cultural studies, seek to illuminate the significance of the public/private distinction for an increasingly wide range of debates.

When we think about what constitutes being a good citizen, routine activities like voting, letter-writing, and paying attention to the news spring to mind. This title argues that these activities play only a small part in democratic citizenship - a form of citizenship that requires creative thinking, talking, and acting.

Despite there having been no significant move to the right in recent years in public political opinion, conservatives have fared much better than progressives. This text explores the reasons for this pattern through examination of case studies of grassroots movements.

How do people practice religion in their everyday lives? Courtney Bender spent more than a year working as a volunteer for a non-profit organisation called God's Love We Deliver, helping to prepare food for people with AIDs, this volume tells the story of that time.

Scholars have made urban mothers living in poverty a focus of their research for decades. Offering an analysis of how faith both motivates and at times constrains poor mothers' actions, this book reveals the ways it serves as a lens through which many view and interpret their worlds.

Although the subject of federally mandated Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) has been extensively debated, we actually do not know much about what takes place when they convene. This book melds observations of IRB meetings with the history of how rules for the treatment of human subjects were formalized in the United States.

How do people become activists for causes they care deeply about? Many people with similar backgrounds, for instance, fervently believe that abortion should be illegal, but only some of them join the pro-life movement. Delving into the lives and beliefs of activists and nonactivists alike, this book examines the differences between them.

This text responds to the idea that American civic institutions are hard pressed, and growing cynical and disconnected from one another. It argues that restoring local institutions will not solve the problem; a civil society needs politics/government to provide a sense of shared values and ideas.

In the Enlightenment tradition, rationality is considered well-defined. However, the author of this study argues that rationality is context-dependent, and that the crucial context is determined by decision-makers' political power. He uses a real-world Danish project to illustrate this theory.

Focuses on the development of democratic life in Mexico and Peru from independence to the late 1890s. The author traces the emergence of hundreds of political, economic, and civic associations run by citizens in both nations and shows how they became models of and for democracy in the face of dictatorship and immense economic hardship.

Why do people keep fighting for social causes in the face of consistent failure? Why do they risk their physical, emotional, and financial safety on behalf of strangers? How do these groups survive high turnover and emotional burnout? This title provides answers to these questions.

Long considered the lifeblood of black urban neighborhoods, churches are thought to be dedicated to serving their surrounding communities. But Omar McRoberts's work in Four Corners, a tough Boston neighborhood containing twenty-nine congregations, reveals a very different picture.