The Tribes of America

Book excerpt: This volume is an empathetic work based on seven years of reporting from the front lines of the culture wars that continue to divide America. The author sets out to "to cross the sound barrier of dogma and test [his] beliefs against the realities of American life" by investigating what he called the "professional, religious, ethnic, and racial tribes?the Tribes of America." From reporting on a vicious battle over school textbooks in West Virginia, the school busing crisis in Boston, and the miners' strike in Harlan County, Kentucky, to the fight over low-income housing in Forest Hills, Queens, and the 1972 conspiracy trial of Eqbal Ahmad, Father Philip Berrigan, and others, the author journeys deep into misunderstood communities across the nation to depict American struggles, prejudices, and hopes.