Hyper-individualism and consumerism are failing to satisfy our hunger for meaning. We face an identity crisis in which real community is increasingly hard to find. The culture wars have been painful and polarising and have proved a poor way to agree any kind of moral standards. Is it even possible to find a vision for goodness that can bring us together?

Rumours of a Better Country addresses our hunger for justice and a better way of living by awakening our moral imagination to the potential of a trusting community. Drawing on ancient wisdom and looking through the lens of daily reality, it shows how trust and trustworthiness must be the foundation for any kind of meaningful freedom.

Through the questions and mysteries of the ‘Café Now and Not Yet’, readers will experience chance encounters with Palestinians in a pub in communist Czechoslovakia, appreciate an intriguing sculpture from Romania and hear post-communist Ukrainians struggling to imagine a better life. Each of these encounters provides a real-life context for a rich and provocative journey into the heart of goodness and why it matters.