ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief interpretation of American society commensurate with those presented in the preceding chapter for Switzerland and New Zealand. While Switzerland and New Zealand are small and far from the center of the world stage, the United States is one of the world's largest nations, a political superpower with the world's most potent economy. The immediate problem in discussing American families in their societal context is that the nation is very large and diverse. Unlike in New Zealand, Sweden, and even relatively heterogeneous Switzerland, there are really many Americas one could write about—many distinct subcultures that make up one loosely connected national unity. In many respects America should not even be classified as a nation of "family traditionalism." With the highest divorce rate among advanced societies and the highest percentage of single-parent families, the United States surpasses even Sweden in its family nontraditionalism in regard to these indicators.
