Michael Adams is a noted commentator on social values and social change in North America. The founding president of the Environics group of research and communications consulting companies, Michael has written four books published by Penguin Canada, including the bestselling Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada, and the Myth of Converging Values, which won the Donner Prize for the best book on Canadian public policy in 2003.

In his most recent book, American Backlash: The Untold Story of Social Change in the United States (Penguin, November 2005), Adams uses his firm's unique social values data set to offer a novel take on America's evolving social values. Adams argues that while the "moral values" of religion, duty, and patriotism have been at the centre of much recent discourse on U.S. electoral politics, American society overall is abandoning these traditional authority-oriented values in favour of thrill-seeking, hedonism, and escapism. Leading the charge in this values evolution are America's politically disengaged, who comprise 40 to 50 percent of the country's population but who remain largely invisible in American public life.

A popular public speaker, Adams offers topical, entertaining talks elaborating the values data presented in his books. In addition to his groundbreaking work in social values analysis, he has conducted traditional polling in Canada for over three decades; his speaking repertoire includes a long-range look at the evolution of Canadian public opinion on a range of issues from public policy to national identity.