One of the world’s leading sociologists and most quoted intellectuals in America today, Amitai Etzioni has been the subject of numerous profiles in all the major media and has worked both with members of the Clinton Administration and Republican senators on social issues and policy. Now, in this important new book, he invites us to explore how a good society should operate and what values we must bring to our social interactions if we are to achieve stronger and more enduring community ties.As Etzioni has found in his years devoted to researching and studying the subject, the problem facing society today is that half the population is wary of order and morality, while the other half is suspicious of liberty, which is equated with permissiveness. In an in-depth analysis that masterfully cuts this Gordian knot, the author lays out how we can, indeed must, have both order and autonomy if we are to create a society in which communities and individuals can thrive. Recognizing that excessive morality and excessive liberty are each a dire threat to the health of society, Etzioni demonstrates how we have overreacted in recent years by assuming that there must be a tradeoff between morality and freedom. However, this need not be the case, because when order is largely based on moral commitments rather than on the law, and autonomy is regarded as a place in a social space, these two social virtues can reinforce each other.Using this framework, Etzioni studies the implications for the future of diversity in America, the implications for educating the next generation, and our relationships with other societies. He also explores the public policy implications of his observations and how governments, community groups and families can respond and grow.
After receiving his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1958, Dr. Amitai Etzioni served as a Professor of Sociology at Columbia University for 20 years; part of that time as the Chairman of the department. He was a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution in 1978 before serving as a Senior Advisor to the White House from 1979-1980. In 1980, Dr. Etzioni was named the first University Professor at The George Washington University, where he is the Director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies. From 1987-1989, he served as the Thomas Henry Carroll Ford Foundation Professor at the Harvard Business School.
Dr. Etzioni served as the president of the American Sociological Association in 1994-95, and in 1989-90 was the founding president of the international Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics. In 1990, he founded the Communitarian Network, a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to shoring up the moral, social and political foundations of society. He was the editor of The Responsive Community: Rights and Responsibilities, the organization's quarterly journal, from 1991-2004. In 1991, the press began referring to Dr. Etzioni as the 'guru' of the communitarian movement.
Dr. Etzioni is the author of numerous books, including The Monochrome Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), The Limits of Privacy (New York: Basic Books, 1999), The New Golden Rule (New York: Basic Books, 1996), which received the Simon Wiesenthal Center's 1997 Tolerance Book Award, The Spirit of Community (New York: Crown Books, 1993), and The Moral Dimension: Toward a New Economics, (New York: Free Press, 1988). His most recent books are My Brother's Keeper: A Memoir and a Message (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), and From Empire to Community: A New Approach to International Relations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
Outside of academia, Dr. Etzioni's voice is frequently heard in the media.
In 2001, he was named among the top 100 American intellectuals as measured by academic citations in Richard Posner's book, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline.
Also in 2001, Dr. Etzioni was awarded the John P. McGovern Award in Behavioral Sciences as well as the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He was also the recipient of the Seventh James Wilbur Award for Extraordinary Contributions to the Appreciation and Advancement of Human Values by the Conference on Value Inquiry, as well as the Sociological Practice Association's Outstanding Contribution Award.
Dr. Etzioni is married and has five sons.
