Identity politics and novel identities are everywhere today. The Decomposition of Man takes on these issues in a new and illuminating way. The social crisis we are facing involves weakening traditional identities-man, woman, husband, wife, Catholic, American-and asserting constructed ones like "Latinx" and "nonbinary." This is liberating, we are told. In reality, however, as the familial, religious, and communal arrangements by which people have hitherto lived unravel, they are taken over by commercial, bureaucratic, and state interests. And as human bonds weaken, confusions multiply, families fall apart, needs go unmet, and people forget who they are.

This book traces the present crisis back to such social changes as industrialization, globalization, and the technological ways of thinking that accompany them. An adequate response will require a renewed emphasis on tradition and natural law, as well as a turn toward local community and toward religion-in particular, Catholicism. That will certainly be an arduous labor, but current trends are clearly unsustainable. Kalb directs this indispensable book to all who wish to understand what lies behind developments that often seem so strange, and how to deal with the new and often threatening world now coming into being.