Eisen analyzes the attempts of American Jewish thinkers to adapt the notion of closeness to the context of the new country. He traces the reinterpretations of "second-generation" American Jews and examines the "third generation" (1955 to the present).
This is an interesting historical and cultural overview of how the religious views of Jewish European immigrants evolved over only 3 to 4 generations into today's mixture of "what is Jewish".