Featuring many renowned contributors - including Isabel Allende, Colin Powell, Gloria Steinem, William F. Buckley, Jr., Penn Jillette, Bill Gates, and John Updike - this collection also contains essays by a Brooklyn lawyer; a part-time hospital clerk; and a man who serves on Rhode Island's parole board. The result is a stirring and provocative trip inside the minds and hearts of a diverse group of people whose beliefs - and the incredibly varied ways in which they choose to express them - reveal the American spirit at its best.