Culture Wars in America is a three-volume reference set with a stellar list of contributors from well-known universities. This is the second edition, updated for the Obama years. Broadly speaking, the overall content surrounds politics, education, law, various issues in popular culture, current and historical ideologies and movements, the media, and social and moral issues.

There has always been an attempt to define the social and political issues of American society. These books attempt to define these “culture wars” without “a labeling and classification of issues that suggests a moralistic either/or sensibility. Presenting players as pairs of polar opposites oversimplifies issues and fails to acknowledge their nuances and complexities” (xxvii).

The title and introduction are needlessly esoteric. The editors should have been more specific about the book’s intended purpose in the introduction. The meaning of “Culture Wars in America” may not be apparent to the average high school or early undergraduate student.

Information is easy to find because of the book’s well-organized front matter. A concise contents list by page number is in each volume. The “Topic Finder” is a hierarchical arrangement of topics within the three volumes. Volume One and volume 2 are arranged with alphabetized entries from A to Z. The entries are readable and appropriate for high school and college students. Volume 3 is Documents, which includes speeches, legal briefs, testimonies and official statements on topics like health care, climate change, and abortion. These items are timely and well chosen from significant dates in the history of the issue. The useful “Further Reading” lists at the end of each entry are a list of relevant sources, mostly books and articles.

These books will need to be replaced with a new edition in 3–4 years. At this price point, a combination of other resources, especially websites, may be a better bet. For example, the federal government’s website usa.gov, organizational, and news websites provide much of this information in a very timely way at the same depth. Many opposing viewpoint databases serve a similar purpose as this set of books.