All the more astonishing, then, is the absence of any authoritative, up-to-date, accessible, comprehensive, and single-volume account of American institutions and public policies. Should American or foreign readers want to learn how and why American institutions and policies are distinctive from those in other advanced liberal democracies, how these institutions and policies work (and don't work), which social forces are operating to transform them, what major challenges they face in the future, and how those challenges might be addressed, they will be frustrated and disappointed. This book seeks to fill this void, to explain America to itself and to its foreign observers.