A book on a timely and powerful theme....While others have documented the damage that litigation does to our economy, Garry wants to show us its cost to our character as a nation. -- Walter Olson, Author, The Litigation Explosion Throughout our history, America has been shaped by a series of transforming events and institutions -- the Pilgrims' Puritanism, the promise of Jacksonian democracy, the staggering rise of corporate capitalism, and the advent of electronic media. Today, a new strain of litigious behavior veers our culture away from the proverbial melting pot to one in which fellow citizens become bitter adversaries. Law is becoming the next American frontier where litigious pioneers try to stake out new opportunities for wealth and fame. A Nation of Adversaries brilliantly examines how the litigation explosion has singed our culture by needlessly crowding courthouses and fueling the growth of the lawyer population. Dr. Patrick Garry, an expert on the effect of the courts on American society, insightfully points out how our increasingly litigant-oriented mindset is reinforcing a self-centered culture of undue expectation and entitlement. He offers a blistering look at litigation's invasion into our once formally mindful society. Anyone interested in new trends of human behavior, as well as professionals in sociology, the legal profession, behavior therapy, and clinical psychology, will find this a shrewd commentary on the creation of a new culture of identity in America.