Integrity

by Stephen L. Carter

Book Overview

Why do we care more about winning than about playing by the rules?

Integrity - all of us are in favor of it, but nobody seems to know how to make sure that we get it. From presidential candidates to crusading journalists to the lords of collegiate sports, everybody promises to deliver integrity, yet all too often, the promises go unfulfilled.

Stephen Carter examines why the virtue of integrity holds such sway over the American political imagination...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060928077
• ISBN13: 9780060928070
• Release Date: December 1996
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

An Invaluable Frame of Reference

Carter is a master of framing and providing a context for complex issues like integrity. This is NOT a preachy book with platitudes about the need for integrity. It IS about defining integrity, the situations where it will be tested, and ways to think about integrity as you make your own decisions. In the end, it is a powerfully enabling book that I have referred to and recommended to friends and colleagues repeatedly for many years.

Voter turn out

I read this book shortly before the 1996 elections. I studied political science and considered myself a typical American- a strategic voter. I may not like the candidate but if his or her views were similar to mine, I'd vote for him/her. Prof. Carter's entirely changed how I vote and how important I view personal integity in every aspect of life.

He writes about Walking ones Talk

It was after reading the authors Culture of Disbelief that made me want to read INTEGRITY. For weeks I had been searching for a book that would best sum up my belief that there are to many hypocrites. People who say one thing but act the opposite. I knew there was a word or theory that would best describe how I felt and then I saw this book and it was like a lightbulb going on. INTEGRITY. It is all about having the gutts to be the person you project yourself to be. Prof Carter has this gift for opening your eyes and you find yourself going "That's Right!" "Yes that's true" "Oh my god that's right" or simply "YES!" Then I got to page 31 and he mentions Commitment. Then begins to describe how we as Americans want reliability, and how we each admire the rare soul who has the integrity to do what is right while all the naysayers mock. How we love it when someone keeps a promise. He then discusses being Forthright, Steadfastness. This is a must read in this election year. A great book for reminding that ethical little person inside all of us that sometimes all it takes to renew anothers faith in humanity is for one man or woman to walk their talk.

Another great book

Carter is gifted. I am a cerified member of the Vast Right Wing Conspirasy and I love this book. Carter is not a leftist. and he is not a Right winger. he is a gifted author who writes the truth and makes the reader think. Great book.

Excellent text with thought provoking insights.

In line with his previous book, Carter writes Integrity as a "knowledge pot", mixed in with thought provoking concepts, examples and idealogy. Integrity, he depicts, is not an integral moment, but rather an integral life than spans from a personal decision (running a red light), a joint decision (marriage)to a public decision (politics). Carter's carefully selected focus on integrity will enlighten one's perspective on life as a decision; discerning, acting, and public display. I am patiently waiting for Civility, his next writing.