Phillip L. Berman was educated in philosophy and religion at the University of California and at Harvard. He is the author of more than a dozen nonfiction books, among them The Courage of Conviction (nominated for the Kennedy Book Award) and, with Connie Goldman, The Ageless Spirit. He is founder and past-president of The Center for the Study of Contemporary Belief and a leading lecturer and writer on spiritual development over the course of the human life cycle. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.

What do Americans, as a people, believe in? What are the experiences that have transformed their lives? How does faith-in God, in human goodness, in politics, progress, money, or pleasure-illuminate our actions? These are the questions that Phillip L. Berman asked when he set off on a four-year, 35,000-mile odyssey to chronicle America's moral imagination. By the time he was through, he had spoken to some five hundred people from all walks of life. What they told him makes this engrossing and radiantly insightful book the first and only oral history of the religious and philosophical beliefs of contemporary Americans. Vividly compelling in the extraordinary freshness and variety of its many voices, The Search for Meaning offers a full scale portrait of the moral state of the union. Praise for The Search for Meaning "Fascinating . . . An impressive and inspiring collection . . . well worth reading for the insights it offers into human nature."-Sacramento Bee "Phillip Berman is the Studs Terkel of American beliefs."-Chicago Tribune