In our crowded, noisy world - too many people, too much crime, too many wars, not enough time - it seems almost impossible to locate and preserve the common ground where a civil society might flourish. Where can we be ourselves and live our lives, arbitrate our differences, be something more than mere consumers, take charge of things? Everywhere we look there is conflict, alienation, bureaucracy, unbridled marketeering capitalism, loss of individual control.

Whatever happened to the civic virtue and community life that nourished true democracy?

In this book, Benjamin Barber tackles these questions head-on and, in answering them, retrieves the ideals of "civil society" from the nostalgists who want to re-create old-fashioned (and discriminatory) small communities and from the free-marketeers who associate it with unfettered commercial activity.

Barber proposes practical strategies for making civil society real, for civilizing public discourse and promoting civic debate, and for envisioning an America where we honor values beyond those of work and leisure, commerce and bureaucracy.