Samuel Huntington's new book is devoted to the analysis of a key problem for modern social consciousness - the definition of identity. The priority of national identity is especially important for the country that is commonly called the “melting crucible of nations” - the United States of America. However, today disintegration processes are gaining strength in the United States, calling into question the very fact of the continued existence of the phenomenon of American identity. America, as Professor Huntington convincingly argues, 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 ultimately swings.