“This thought-provoking oral history illuminates the vibrant panorama of values and beliefs that is shaping America.”—Coretta Scott King

What do Americans, as a people, believe in? What are the experiences that have transformed their lives? How does faith—in God, in human goodness, in politics, progress, money, or pleasure—illuminate our actions?

These are the questions that Phillip L. Berman asked when he set off on a four-year, 35,000-mile odyssey to chronicle America’s moral imagination. By the time he was through, he had spoken to some five hundred people from all walks of life. What they told him makes this engrossing and radiantly insightful book the first oral history of the religious and philosophical beliefs of contemporary Americans.

Vividly compelling in the extraordinary variety of its many voices, The Search for Meaning offers a full-scale portrait of the moral state of the union.

“Fascinating characters . . . colorful interviews . . . one of the most inspiring of its genre.”—San Francisco Chronicle