The Civic Imagination provides a rich empirical description of civic life and a broader discussion of the future of democracy in contemporary America. Five researchers observed and participated, over the course of a year, in 7 civic organizations in a mid-sized US city. They draw on this ethnographic evidence to map the "civic imaginations" that motivate citizenship engagement in America today. The book unpacks how contemporary Americans think about and act toward positive social and political change. The authors' findings challenge contemporary assertions of American apathy.

The author stresses at the outset that this book is a memoir, not to be confused with an autobiography. The published book is a compilation of a set of manuscripts, and the transcription of a voice recording made in the last year of her life. The text is divided into chapters, each of which gives a vignette of a particular series of events in the author's life - beginning with her sheltered childhood at Eton College; her experiences as a volunteer in the ranks, and later as an officer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force during the Second World War; her first introduction to the ideas now known...