Description: This book centers on the major theme of Reinhold Niebuhr's lifework, the nature of humanity and the political and social life. Idealistic and realistic social philosophies are reevaluated and tribalism is analyzed as a pervasive quality of humankind's societies. A thinker who has always advanced by criticizing his own assumptions, Dr. Niebuhr continued to break new ground and to reconsider some of his earlier judgments. In this book, Dr. Niebuhr reviews the doctrines of the political order advanced by religious and secular interests; he traces the long history of the paradox of man's obvious universal humanity and the tribal loyalties which are the roots of human inhumanity; and he deals with the complex relation between ambition and creativity. Adding to and modifying his remarkable contribution to contemporary thought, Dr. Niebuhr has written a book that is of fundamental importance. About the Contributor(s): Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), ethicist, theologian, and political philosopher, taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York City from 1928 to 1960. Prior to that, he was a minister of Detroit's Bethel Evangelical Church for thirteen years. Among his many books are Faith and History, Moral Man and Immoral Society, Beyond Tragedy, and The Irony of American History.