This database helps students develop an in-depth understanding of how society shapes and is shaped by controversy, providing authoritative historical context, expert perspectives, and carefully selected primary and secondary sources on today's most important issues.

Global warming. Gun control. Abortion. World poverty. Our modern world is more complicated and troubled than one might imagine possible. Studying current issues—both domestic and worldwide—educates students, helps them develop critical thinking skills, and enables them to make informed, responsible decisions that will dictate our future.

Students in all areas of study need to grasp the important issues of our time and possess a deeper understanding of our world. Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society goes far beyond simple lists of information and keyword searches and gives researchers insight into timely and enduring questions in our world, tying history to current events to sharpen the understanding of both.

Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society has been produced and further refined with the guidance of leading scholars and educators. The newly integrated, easy-to-use interface allows researchers to examine a wide variety of challenges facing the United States and the world beyond. Issues addresses more than 200 of today's most significant social issues, compiling information in more than 3,500 articles and 7,500 multimedia primary sources.

In addition to providing authoritative information on current issues, this rich online resource also contains the Idea Exchange feature, which helps users investigate controversial subjects through thoughtful questions, revealing the background story behind the issues, and providing scholars' perspectives and analysis. The topics within the Idea Exchange sections allow students to make informed opinions on hotly debated controversies.

Features
• Idea Exchange sections offer students the opportunity to model their research writing upon thesis-driven, peer-reviewed scholarly essays, focused on Enduring Questions such as "Should violent juvenile offenders be tried and sentenced as adults?" and "Should same-sex marriage be legalized in the United States?"
• A wide variety of primary sources provides context for the issues, including such documents as the Clean Air Act (1963) and the Copenhagen Accord (2009) and more than 4,000 images and audio and visual files, including interviews with LGBT veterans describing their experiences under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

Highlights
• Unlike other databases that aggregate information without context, Issues offers the complete historical background and contemporary status of each issue and also provides supporting facts, figures, and timelines
• The content is organized to help researchers understand and analyze the topics, guiding them in framing questions and supporting them in drawing conclusions
• Library resources are maximized, with reference and curriculum tools in one, providing great value

Reviews
"Issues is a product that will be used. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-level undergraduates; general audience." - Choice