Samuel Huntington's new book is devoted to the analysis of a key problem for modern public consciousness - the definition of identity. The priority of national identity is especially important for a country that is commonly called the "melting crucible of peoples" - the United States of America. However, disintegration processes are gaining momentum in the United States today, calling into question the very fact of the continued existence of the phenomenon of American identity. America, as Professor Huntington convincingly proves, is at a turning point - and the future of not only the United States, but the entire world system as a whole depends on which way the pendulum will eventually swing.