"In Between Two Ages, Van Wishard has provided us with a masterful synthesis of the main currents of history, ranging over the centuries with an experts eye to identify the key trends in economics, technology and culture that have led us to this place in time. By itself, this would be an important contribution to our understanding. But the true significance of Between Two Ages lies in his placing this analysis within a profoundly moral and ethical framework. Van Wishard has not simply diagnosed the reasons for our spiritual malaise. He has also suggested how each of us can overcome this malaise and find a larger purpose or meaning to our lives. From the foreword by Dr. Mitchell B. Reiss Dean of International Affairs College of William & Mary Introduction Despite the stratospheric heights of the Dow in recent years, the allure of prosperity and the astounding possibilities opening up for human fulfillment, the next three decades could be the most decisive 30-year period in the history of mankind. Thus you and I are living in the midst of perhaps the most uncertain period America has ever known -- more difficult than World War II, the Depression or even the Civil War. With these earlier crises, an immediately identifiable, focused emergency existed, an emergency people could see and mobilize to combat. But the crisis today is of a different character and order. For America is at the vortex of a global cyclone of change so vast and deep that it is uprooting established institutions, altering centuries-old relationships, changing underlying mores and attitudes, and now, so the experts tell us, even threatening the continued existence of the human species. It is not simply change at the margins; it is change at the very core of life. Culture-smashing change. Identity-shattering change. Soul-crushing change. Prior generations faced change within a context of stable institutions that functioned more or less effectively. Earlier generations had a more stableif less comfortableframework, as well as more clearly defined reference points. Our era doesnt have such guides, for all of Americas institutions, from government to family, from business to religion, are in upheaval. The past century has seen civilized life increasingly ripped from its moorings. The immutable certainties that anchored our ancestors no longer seem to hold in a world where the tectonic plates of life are clashing, where human antagonisms obliterate tens of thousands of people in Africa, Bosnia or Chechnya in a matter of a few days or weeks, where a stray bullet ends the life of an elderly lady quietly walking home from church in Washington, D.C. In so many ways, a life that has lost its essential meaning has cut giant swaths across humanity. Clearly, we have been standing at a unique historical dividing line -- the end of the modern era, as well as the Industrial Age, the end of the colonial period, the end of the Atlantic-based economic, political and military global hegemony, the end of Americas culture being drawn primarily from European sources, the end of the masculine patriarchal/hierarchical epoch, and as Joseph Campbell suggests, the end of the Christian eon. Obviously, one era doesnt stop and a new one start in a week. Yearseven decades or generationsof overlap take place. The sense of an age ending and something new emerging was evident during the earliest years of the 20th century. In 1913, Harvard philosopher George Santayana noted: "The civilization characteristic of Christendom has not yet disappeared, yet another civilization has begun to take its place." In 1928, at the height of the "Roaring Twenties," historian Will Durant wrote, "Human conduct and belief are now undergoing transformations profounder and more disturbing than any since the appearance of wealth and philosophy put an end to the tradition

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR NPR • Time Magazine • The Washington Post • Entertainment Weekly • The Boston Globe A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK From one of our most accomplished and widely admired historians—a revelatory portrait of Benjamin Franklin's youngest sister, Jane, whose obscurity and poverty were matched only by her brother’s fame and wealth but who, like him, was a passionate reader, a gifted writer, and an astonishingly shrewd political commentator. Making use of an astonishing cache of little-studied material, including documents, objects, and portraits only just discovered, Jill Lepore brings Jane Franklin to life in a way that illuminates not only this one extraordinary woman but an entire world.

The overwhelming reality of our time is this: In the opening years of the 21st century, the United States finds itself not only the most powerful nation on earth but the most powerful nation that has ever existed. Given the contradictory roles America plays in the world, we are fated to be the catalyst for either a new global community or for global chaos. If we don't lead, Zbigniew Brzezinski contends, rather than merely dominate by force, we could face worldwide hostility much like the regional hostility now confronting Israel. Brzezinski argues for a more complex and sophisticated view of our global role than much of our media and political leadership are willing to entertain. We are the world's policeman, but we have to be seen as a fair one. We are entitled to a higher level of security than other nations (because we assume greater risks), but we are also the proponent of essential freedoms. We are uniquely powerful, but our homeland is uniquely -and chronically-vulnerable. "Globalization" precludes immunity for even the most powerful. This is an impressively lucid assessment, informed by decades of experience on the front lines of foreign policy, of where we stand in the world and where we should go from here.

Eminent scholar Zbigniew Brzezinski's New York Times bestselling blueprint for American foreign policy strategy in the twenty-first century The world today faces a crisis of power, caused by the dramatic shift in its center of gravity from the West to the East, by the dynamic political awakening of people worldwide, and by the deterioration of America's performance both domestically and internationally. As a result, America's position as a world superpower is far from secure. In Strategic Vision, former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski argues that America can and should be actively engaged in navigating this period of crisis and provides a strategic blueprint for America to revitalize its global status and promote a peaceful twenty-first century. As Brzezinski eloquently shows, without an America that is economically vital, socially appealing, responsibly powerful, and capable of sustaining an intelligent foreign engagement, the geopolitical prospects for the West could become increasingly grave.