Caught in the Crossfire: Kids, Politics, and America's Future

What's going on in America? Caught in the Crossfire offers an original and compelling vision of the forces changing the ways people live their lives, through the unique lens of America's children. Grossberg reveals how the United States has been gradually shifting from a society that celebrates childhood into one that is hostile to and afraid of its own children. Today kids are often seen as a threat to our social and moral values. Grossberg gathers evidence from the media, schools, courts, medicine, economics, and family life. Caught in the Crossfire locates this alteration in an original understanding of the struggles transforming contemporary America and of the choices Americans face about their future. He documents the relations between economic ideologies and economic realities and explores both the 'culture wars' and the political culture of the nation. Grossberg argues that all of these developments, including those involving the state of kids, only make sense as integral parts of a larger struggle to redefine America's uniqueness and to develop a new sense of itself as a modern society.

Lawrence Grossberg is the Morris Davis distinguished professor of communication studies and cultural studies and director of the University Program in Cultural Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.