Synopses & Reviews
Preserving Ethnicity through Religion in America explores the factors that may lead to greater success in ethnic preservation. Pyong Gap Min compares Indian Americans and Korean Americans, two of the most significant ethnic groups in New York, and examines the different ways in which they preserve their ethnicity through their faith. Does someone feel more “Indian” because they practice Hinduism? Does membership in a Korean Protestant church aid in maintaining ties to Korean culture?
Pushing beyond sociological research on religion and ethnicity which has tended to focus on whites or on a single immigrant group or on a single generation, Min also takes actual religious practice and theology seriously, rather than gauging religiosity based primarily on belonging to a congregation. Fascinating and provocative voices of informants from two generations combine with telephone survey data to help readers understand overall patterns of religious practices for each group under consideration. Preserving Ethnicity through Religion in America is remarkable in its scope, its theoretical significance, and its methodological sophistication.
Review
“Pyong Gap Min here exhibits all the methodological skill and interpretive nuance we have come to expect from the foremost sociologist of Asian American religion. . . . The book is a tour de force, one that will cause us to re-evaluate several things we have long thought we knew about how religion shapes ethnicity and vice-versa. The writing is clear and jargon-free, and the narrative is rich in human detail.”
- Paul Spickard, University of California, Santa Barbara
Review
“A well-crafted comparative study of immigrant religious life and spiritual practices among Korean Protestants and Indian Hindus in the United States based on quantitative survey data and in-depth interviews. It advances a compelling theoretical account about the relationship between religious diversity and immigrant adaptationa must-read book on the sociology of religion.”
- Min Zhou, co-editor of Contemporary Chinese America: Second Edition
Review
"The book, based on Pyong Gap Min's exhaustive study of Korean Protestant and Indian communities in the New York area, shows how these ethnic groups move in two different directions regarding religion and ethnicity: the Koreans tend to separate ethnicity and religion as they integrate into society, increasingly stressing the latter, while the Indians maintain their ethnicity through their Hinduism, although with looser religious attachments in the second generation."
“Pyong Gap Min here exhibits all the methodological skill and interpretive nuance we have come to expect from the foremost sociologist of Asian American religion. . . . The book is a tour de force, one that will cause us to re-evaluate several things we have long thought we knew about how religion shapes ethnicity and vice-versa. The writing is clear and jargon-free, and the narrative is rich in human detail.”
“A well-crafted comparative study of immigrant religious life and spiritual practices among Korean Protestants and Indian Hindus in the United States based on quantitative survey data and in-depth interviews. It advances a compelling theoretical account about the relationship between religious diversity and immigrant adaptation—a must-read book on the sociology of religion.”
Synopsis
2012 Honorable Mention Award, Sociology of Religion Section, presented by the American Sociological Association 2011 Honorable Mention for the American Sociological Association International Migration Section's Thomas and Znaniecki Best Book
Preserving Ethnicity through Religion in America explores the factors that may lead to greater success in ethnic preservation. Pyong Gap Min compares Indian Americans and Korean Americans, two of the most significant ethnic groups in New York, and examines the different ways in which they preserve their ethnicity through their faith. Does someone feel more -Indian- because they practice Hinduism? Does membership in a Korean Protestant church aid in maintaining ties to Korean culture?
Pushing beyond sociological research on religion and ethnicity which has tended to focus on whites or on a single immigrant group or on a single generation, Min also takes actual religious practice and theology seriously, rather than gauging religiosity based primarily on belonging to a congregation. Fascinating and provocative voices of informants from two generations combine with telephone survey data to help readers understand overall patterns of religious practices for each group under consideration. Preserving Ethnicity through Religion in America is remarkable in its scope, its theoretical significance, and its methodological sophistication.
Synopsis
This, the twenty-seventh volume in the annual series of publications by the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy, features a number of distinguised contributors addressing the topic of criminal justice. Part I considers "The Moral and Metaphysical Sources of the Criminal Law," with contributions by Michael S. Moore, Lawrence Rosen, and Martin Shapiro.
The four chapters in Part II all relate, more or less directly, to the issue of retribution, with papers by Hugo Adam Bedau, Michael Davis, Jeffrie G. Murphy, and R. B. Brandt. In the following part, Dennis F. Thompson, Christopher D. Stone, and Susan Wolf deal with the special problem of criminal responsibility in governmentone of great importance in modern society. The fourth and final part, echoing the topic of NOMOS XXIV, Ethics, Economics, and the Law, addresses the economic theory of crime. The section includes contributions by Alvin K. Klevorick, Richard A. Posner, Jules L. Coleman, and Stephen J. Schulhofer.
A valuable bibiography on criminal justice by Andrew C. Blanar concludes this volume of NOMOS.
Synopsis
Preserving Ethnicity through Religion in America explores the factors that may lead to greater success in ethnic preservation. Pyong Gap Min compares Indian Americans and Korean Americans, two of the most significant ethnic groups in New York, and examines the different ways in which they preserve their ethnicity through their faith. Does someone feel more “Indian” because they practice Hinduism? Does membership in a Korean Protestant church aid in maintaining ties to Korean culture?
Pushing beyond sociological research on religion and ethnicity which has tended to focus on whites or on a single immigrant group or on a single generation, Min also takes actual religious practice and theology seriously, rather than gauging religiosity based primarily on belonging to a congregation. Fascinating and provocative voices of informants from two generations combine with telephone survey data to help readers understand overall patterns of religious practices for each group under consideration. Preserving Ethnicity through Religion in America is remarkable in its scope, its theoretical significance, and its methodological sophistication.
About the Author
J. Roland holds a B.A. from Swarthmore College and an M.A. and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He has taught for many years at Swarthmore College, where he is Richter Professor of Political Science Emeritus. He is the author of
Liberal Democracy: Its Merits and Prospects and other books and articles especially in the field of political theory.
John W. Chapman is retired from the University of Pittsburgh where he taught political science.