Jens Alber is Professor of Sociology at the Free University of Berlin and Director of the Research Unit Inequality and Social Integration at the Social Science Center Berlin.

Neil Gilbert is Chernin Professor of Social Welfare at the School of Social Welfare, University of California at Berkeley, faculty leader of the Center for Comparative Family Welfare and Poverty Research, and was the Founding Director of the Family Welfare Research Group.

Jens Alber
Research Unit "Inequality and Social Integration"
Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB)
Berlin, Germany

Jutta Allmendinger
Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB)
Berlin, Germany

Rebecca M. Blank
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Richard V. Burkhauser
College of Human Ecology
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York

Francis G. Castles
Department of Political Science
Australian National University
Canberra, Australia

Kenneth A. Couch
Department of Economics
University of Connecticut
Storrs, Connecticut

Christian Ebner
Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB)
Berlin, Germany

Werner Eichhorst
Institute for the Study of Labor
Bonn, Germany

Richard B. Freeman
Harvard University, and
National Bureau of Economic Research
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Markus Gangl
Faculty of Sociology
University of Mannheim
Mannheim, Germany

Neil Gilbert
Center for Comparative Family Welfare and Poverty Research
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California

Nadia Granato
Institute for Employment Research
Nuremberg, Germany

Anton Hemerijck
Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR)
The Hague, The Netherlands

Charles Hirschman
Department of Sociology
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington

Frank Kalter
Institute of Sociology
University of Leipzig
Leipzig, Germany

Ulrich Kohler
Research Unit "Inequality and Social Integration"
Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB)
Berlin, Germany

Patricia Maloney
Department of Sociology
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut

Karl Ulrich Mayer
Department of Sociology
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut

Michael P. McDonald
Department of Public and International Affairs
George Mason University
Fairfax, Virginia

Rita Nikolai
Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB)
Berlin, Germany

Anthony Daniel Perez
Department of Sociology
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington

Stein Ringen
Social Sciences Division
University of Oxford
Oxford, United Kingdom

John Samples
Center for Representative Government
CATO Institute
Washington, District of Columbia

Chiara Saraceno
Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB)
Berlin, Germany

"This book provides an outstanding example of comparative studies at their best. A fine collection of top-notch essays."--Amitai Etzioni, author of New Common Ground

"...It is rare that a compilation of essays tackles so important a set of topics so successfully. Indeed, collectively the essays here amount to an extensive and profound meditation on the state of the western world and the divergences and rifts within it."--Peter Baldwin, Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles

"Are the United States and Europe on diverging trajectories? Jens Alber and Neil Gilbert have compiled an excellent collection of studies on commonalities and variations between European societies and the United States. The volume includes theoretically informed comparative analyses of characteristics of the state, democracy and social citizenship, and of selected policy outcomes, and represents a timely and inspiring contribution to an understanding of how the present-day American and European societies are developing."--Stein Kuhnle, Professor of Comparative Politics, University of Bergen and Professor of Comparative Social Policy, Hertie School of Governance

"Unity in Diversity? is both successor and 21st century antithesis to Werner Sombart's 1906 Why is There No Socialism in the United States?, which called attention to the lack of a major American socialist movement and challenged generations of social scientists to compare political and social well-being in the United States and Europe. The chapters collected here compare contemporary democracy, electoral participation, public expenditure patterns, poverty, employment, social mobility, educational opportunity, and immigration, finding at least as much similarity as difference. Alber and Gilbert conclude-at the start of a global economic crisis-the two sides of the Atlantic may now well be united by common goals, achieved to different degrees by marginally different means."--Stephan Leibfried, Professor of Public and Social Policy, University of Bremen

"The edited volume by Alber and Gilbert is a compilation of excellent essays written by leading scholars who provide a contemporary contribution to a question that has fascinated scholars for centuries. This book is a must read!" -- International Journal of Social Welfare