by Paul H. Ray, Ph.D. and Sherry Ruth Anderson, Ph.D.

THE CULTURAL CREATIVES: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World describes a new American subculture that has been growing over the past 40 years and quietly revolutionizing American life. The authors assert that this group, too small to measure before the 1960s, is now 50 million strong-a quarter of the adults in the United States. They are called the Cultural Creatives because they are creating new social inventions, worldviews, and ways of life. Their values are environmentally concerned, altruistic, idealistic, and spiritual, focused on relationships and psychological development, emphasizing the worth of the feminine, and longing to create a positive future.

Based on a decade of original research from more than 100,000 respondents, on hundreds of focus groups, and dozens of in-depth interviews, the book tracks the emergence of the Cultural Creatives population. From wide-ranging cultural perspectives and deeply personal stories, we learn how this group has grown out of the twenty kinds of social movements that have appeared over the past several decades. At a time of epochal shift in modern civilization, they have now reached the critical mass that can transform American and global society in significant and beneficial ways. Their inspiring new social inventions are already exerting an influence on many aspects of American society, including health, business, social movements, psychology, and spirituality.

What the Cultural Creatives lack is self-awareness as a culture. Because they have not guessed how large their numbers are, they have seen themselves as scattered and isolated. They do not yet know the promise they hold as a cohesive new force for change in the new century. The Cultural Creatives opens our eyes to a group that is bringing a fundamental transformation in values and behavior to American life.

- Adapted from the Publisher's Annotation for The Cultural Creatives by Paul H. Ray, Ph.D. and Sherry Ruth Anderson, Ph.D., copyright © 2000 by Paul H. Ray, Ph.D. and Sherry Ruth Anderson, Ph.D. Used by permission of Harmony Books, a division of Random House, Inc.