Synopses & Reviews
The melting pot is no more. Where not very long ago we sought assimilation, we now pursue multiculturalism. Nowhere has this transformation been more evident than in the public schools, where atraditional Eurocentric curriculum has yielded to diversity--and, often, to confrontation and confusion. In a book that brings clarity and reason to this highly charged issue, Nathan Glazer explores these sweeping changes. He offers anincisive account of why we all--advocates and skeptics alike--have become multiculturalists, and what this means for national unity, civil society, and the education of our youth.
Focusingparticularly on the impact in public schools, Glazer dissects the four issues uppermost in the minds of people on both sides of the multicultural fence: Whose "truth" do we recognize in the curriculum? Will an emphasis on ethnic rootsundermine or strengthen our national unity in the face of international disorder? Will attention to social injustice, past and present, increase or decrease civil disharmony and strife? Does a multicultural curriculum enhance learning,by engaging students' interest and by raising students' self-esteem, or does it teach irrelevance at best and fantasy at worst?
Glazer argues cogently that multiculturalism arose from the failure ofmainstream society to assimilate African Americans; anger and frustration at their continuing separation gave black Americans the impetus for rejecting traditions that excluded them. But, willingly or not, "we are all multiculturalistsnow," Glazer asserts, and his book gives us the clearest picture yet of what there is to know, to fear, and to ask of ourselves in this new identity.
Review
[A] welcome addition to the growing canon [on multiculturalism]...a kind of battlefield primer for spectators and participants alike...[T]his is a sober, lucid and fair-minded book.
Review
So many reams of paper, so many gallons of ink have been devoted to books dealing with our ongoing culture wars in general, and with multiculturalism in particular, that it is difficult to comprehend an end to itall...The esteemed social scientist ,author>Nathan Glazer's book is so thorough and reasoned in its analysis and prognosis that one can only hope that it will be treated as definitive...Mr. Glazer's account seeks to place ourcurrent round of multiculturalism in historical perspective...Given [his] impressive marshaling of historical, economic and sociological evidence, it is hard to argue with him...[This book] offers a clear, if imposing, path out of thepresent impasse.
Review
[Glazer's] analysis of the relative failure of the United States to assimilate its black population, despite his own early optimism, is sobering, and goes a long way toward explaining the drive for multiculturalstudies in American classrooms.
Review
A wry statement of reluctant resignation to America's prevailing cultural realities, by Glazer, a Harvard sociologist and education/social-policy expert...Multiculturalism, [Glazer] asserts, is now an unavoidableelement of American life, and one that we must come to grips with. This book is remarkable for the plainspoken grace of its concessions, and Glazer also maintains an eloquent honesty about his reservations regarding government-imposedremedies, and about his unaccustomed position of being stymied for answers. One of the culture wars' quietly dedicated establishmentarian soldiers has laid down his rhetorical arms to prepare for a more civil and salutary engagement.
Review
Since it is already deeply entrenched in the schools, Glazer devoted much of his attention to multiculturalism in education. He provides a thoughtful analysis of four concerns raised by its influence there: to wit,whether it does or does not distort truth, imperil national unity, and undermine social harmony, and whether it affects students' learning positively or negatively. He also gives us something of an insider's view of the curricular andtextbook wars in New York and California, and of the controversy over 'national standards' in history. Glazer is quite sensitive to the danger that the 'strongest' versions of multiculturalism could'undermine what is still, on balance, a success in world history, a diverse society that continues to welcome further diversity, with a distinctive and common culture of some merit.' Be he does not think this will happen, because whatthe multiculturalists are really demanding is not separation, but inclusion under terms of equality.
Review
In this elegantly written book, Nathan Glazer provides a historically rich account of the rise of multiculturalism and explicates its political significance. He argues that the diffusion of multiculturalism has beendriven by the singeing fault-line of 20th-century America, the position of African Americans. In the book's best chapter, on assimilation, Glazer explains how the discussion of this topic elided and ignored the position of blackAmericans--it was the assimilation of eastern and southern Europeans which exercised the assimilationists in the 1910s and 1920s; African Americans, if thought of at all, were considered unassimilable...This is a timely and thoughtfulbook. Glazer's historical sensitivity and, above all, his appreciation of the need to place African Americans at the centre of any engagement with multiculturalism, enables him to dissect and explain this phenomenon far more cogentlythan most commentators.
Review
'A wry statement of reluctant resignation to America\'s prevailing cultural realities, by Glazer, a Harvard sociologist and education/social-policy expert...Multiculturalism, [Glazer] asserts, is now an unavoidable element of American life, and one that we must come to grips with. This book is remarkable for the plainspoken grace of its concessions, and Glazer also maintains an eloquent honesty about his reservations regarding government-imposed remedies, and about his unaccustomed position of being stymied for answers. One of the culture wars\' quietly dedicated establishmentarian soldiers has laid down his rhetorical arms to prepare for a more civil and salutary engagement.'
Review
We Are All Multiculturalists Nowis a reasoned and discerning analysis of an issue that has generated intense controversy...[
Glazer's] account of the historyof America's responses to immigration offers an invaluable context for assessing contemporary racial and ethnic issues. Review
A generation ago, Nathan Glazer made a reputation of being one of the strongest critics of affirmative action policies, arguing that the melting pot of the market would suffice to overcome ethnic inequality.Glazer's present qualified support for multicultural policies indicates how far assimilation has been supplanted as the goal and reality of US society. In this book Glazer charts the relatively recent rise of the word, discusses severaldebates evoked by multiculturalism, explains why it has been such a preoccupation of the last two decades, and mounts a moderate defence of it.
Review
Glazer...is a distinguished social scientist and social critic...[This is a] densely packed book, the essential argument of which is that multiculturalism `is the price America is paying for its inability orunwillingness to incorporate into its society African Americans, in the same way and to the same degree it has incorporated so many groups.'
About the Author
Table of Contents
1. The Multicultural Explosion
2. The New York Story
3. What Is at Stake in Multiculturalism?
4. The Rediscovery of Nubia and Kush
5. Dealing with Diversity, Past and Present
6. Where Assimilation Failed
7. CanWe Be Brought Together?
8. "We are All Multiculturalists Now"
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index