Does the religious right have a hammerlock on values in America? Is the new American dream really about getting and spending, and being the first zillionaire on the block? At the turn of the millennium, fifty million ordinary Americans emphatically disagree. They are the Cultural Creatives - the leading edge creators of a new culture in America.

In this landmark book, sociologist Paul H. Ray and psychologist Sherry Ruth Anderson draw upon 13 years of survey research studies on over 100,000 Americans, plus over 100 focus groups and dozens of depth interviews. They tell who the Cultural Creatives are, and the fascinating story of their emergence over the last generation, using vivid examples and engaging personal stories to describe the values and lifestyles that make this subculture distinctive.

The Cultural Creatives care deeply about ecology and saving the planet, about relationships, peace, social justice, and about self actualization, spirituality and self-expression. Surprisingly, they are both inner-directed and socially concerned, they're activists, volunteers and contributors to good causes more than other Americans. However, because they've been so invisible in American life, Cultural Creatives themselves are astonished to find out how many share both their values and their way of life. Once they realize their numbers, their impact on American life promises to be enormous, shaping a new agenda for the twenty-first century.

Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson tell how people departed from Modern or Traditional cultures to weave new ways of life. Three Americas are struggling to define what the country should be: Traditionals, Moderns and Cultural Creatives. The authors show how each one emerged historically, and how the Cultural Creatives in particular grew out of the social movements of the Sixties right up to Seattle's WTO demonstrations, and from the consciousness movements in spirituality, psychology and alternative health. They conclude that all the different kinds of movements are converging now, with the Cultural Creatives at the core.

What makes the appearance of the Cultural Creatives especially timely today is that our civilization is in the midst of an epochal change, caught between globalization, accelerating technologies and a deteriorating planetary ecology. A creative minority can have enormous leverage to carry us into a new renaissance instead of a disastrous fall. The book ends with a number of maps for the remarkable journey that our civilization is embarked upon: initiations, evolutionary models, scenarios, and the elements of a new mythos for our time. The Cultural Creatives offers a more hopeful future, and prepares us all for a transition to a new, saner and wiser culture.