Special Project: American Renewal

To believe in an American Renewal one must ultimately believe in individual Americans: those countless citizens who, despite all the doubts, the heedlessness, the disorder of the society, go about their lives with courage and patience, slangy competence and cheerful persistence, with some larceny and some anger and some kindness—and above all with the odd conviction that their country is still an experiment and that it must stand for something beyond mere survival. These are not exclusive American virtues, but they are human virtues with a very American accent, and they surely must inspire a sense of love and hope.

Henry Grunwald
Editor-in-Chief