Based on research from multiple disciplines, this accessible book describes the presence and growth of diversity in the United States from its earliest years to the present. Koppelman investigates the ways in which diversity is actually experienced and debated across critical sectors of social experience, including immigration, affirmative action, education, and national identity, among others.

Wrestling with the Angel addresses the human struggle to cope with death, dying, grief, and bereavement. The book includes essays, a one-act play, a short story, and poetry, including shape poems, rhyming, structured verse, and free verse. In the one-act play, an angel of death comes for a man who has lived an unexamined life and wants to explain why he is not prepared to leave. The short story offers a humorous look at a man who resists aging by continuing to view himself as the young man he once was. The diverse genres allow for different ways of exploring these issues, but all are intended...