Book Description: The bestseller that reminded us what it means to be an American is more timely than ever in this updated and enlarged edition, including "Schlesinger's Syllabus," an annotated reading list of core books on the American experience. The classic image of the American nation-a melting pot in which differences of race, wealth, religion, and nationality are submerged in democracy-is being replaced by an orthodoxy that celebrates difference and abandons assimilation. While this upsurge in ethnic awareness has had many healthy consequences in a nation shamed by a history of prejudice, the cult of ethnicity, if pressed too far, threatens to fragment American society to a dangerous degree. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner in history and adviser to the Kennedy and other administrations, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., is uniquely positioned to wave the caution flag in the race to a politics of identity. Using a broader canvas in this updated and expanded edition, he examines the international dimension and the lessons of one polyglot country after another tearing itself apart or on the brink of doing so: among them the former Yugoslavia, Nigeria, even Canada. Closer to home, he finds troubling new evidence that multiculturalism gone awry here in the United States threatens to do the same.
Amazon.com: In this updated version of a modern classic, acclaimed historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. strikes a blow against radical multiculturalism. The rising cult of ethnicity, he argues, threatens a common American identity, imperiling the civic ideals that traditionally have bonded immigrants into a nation. Various chapters criticize bilingual education, Afrocentrism, and the use of history as group therapy for minorities. Schlesinger raised eyebrows when he first published this book in 1992 because of his impeccable liberal credentials as a one-time assistant to President Kennedy and long-standing academic champion of FDR's New Deal. This new version contains all of the original volume's edge, plus a few extras, including an appendix containing "Schlesinger's Syllabus," 13 books "indispensable to an understanding of America." Titles from this eclectic list include The Federalist Papers, Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Mencken's American Language. The Disuniting of America remains an essential book for readers interested in the American character as it enters the 21st century. --John J. Miller
More Important Now than Ever! When you think of what befell Rome or Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" this book brings it all together and is a MUST READ to understand what is happening the American Melting Pot!
striving for fairness The most prominent feature of this book, last revised in 1998, is the fact that the author bends over backward to find something complimentary to say about the ideology that has gripped America for the last few decades. This in itself is quite a challenge, and Schlesinger often gives the impression that he is straining to find some way to make the various slogans of this new dogma seem defensible.
The author's main interest is history, and a great part of the book is on the dismantling of history that has occurred in the last thirty years. The kid gloves treatment of what without exaggeration can easily be called a cultural atrocity, will make some readers impatient. Does he really think that these people are going to read his book? Does he really think that, even if they DO read his book, that their opinions are going to be altered to even a slight degree?
If he does think this, then he does not really understand the full seriousness of the new American mind-set. For a thorough study of this new ideology, see While America Sleeps: How Islam, Immigration and Indoctrination are Destroying America from Within. This book is fair, but it does not attempt to make excuses for what is going on. I really do not think that Schlesinger understood the full seriousness of what is going on. He has spent his life among reasonable and well-informed people.
Looking back at the United America Today Mr. Schlesinger appears to be a conservative vs. the liberal he actually was when writing the book.
For people over 50, you will recognize America as it was. For younger folks, this will give you an idea of the very rapid changes this country has experienced.
The country was at one time like a rich stew, and now has become a bunch of individual plates of foods or ingredients that don't even want to touch each other. Each ingredient yells out how important it is, and not realizing that carrots alone, wonderful as they may be, have not reached the potential they can when mixed with potatoes, meat, tomatoes, spices and lovingly blended into that rich stew.
Hopefully people will read and understand that the individual ethnic groups need recognition. But, they need to be Americans first, and their ethnic background as second. For example, American-Asian instead of Asian-American. The ethnocentricism is tearing the country apart, weakening us to invasions of many types.
This book brings these ideas to mind and will make you think and reflect.
It's Tribalism Stupid While this book was not as compelling as I expected it to be, I completely agree with the general premise. That being that multi-culturalism taken too far is both harmful and counter-productive. Not to mention that it is completely antithetical to what our founders envisioned for this country. Mr. Schlesinger has nothing against the teaching of cultures other than European-American, but he insists that an over-emphasis on ethnicity, ultimately promotes division and an 'us vs. them' mentality. Multi-culturalists argue that it is important for students to be taught about their own respective ethnicity in order to have self-esteem and pride. Mr. Schlesinger argues, and I firmly agree, that as Americans, we no longer belong to the ethnicities of our grandfathers. Our founding fathers were clear about this, Americans are a "new race of men" who must "cast off the European skin, never to resume it." Indeed, America was meant to be a melting pot. Schlesinger acknowledges that throughout much of our history, many minorities were forcibly excluded from fully assimilating. This is no longer the case though, and I think it is important to point out that just because a man (or a nation) fails to live up to it's ideals, does not mean that the ideals are wrong. Included in the book are quotes from various Americans about this issue, and I was somewhat surprised by some of them. For instance, the great Frederick Douglas said, "No one idea has given rise to more opression and persecution toward the colored people of this country, than that which makes Africa, not America, their home. It is that wolfish idea that elbows us off the sidewalk, and denies us the rights of citizenship."
I firmly believe that this tribalist mentality is one of the foremost issues facing America today. We will not survive as a nation if we continue to separate ourselves along lines of race, ethnicity, or religion. As long as we view ourselves as Irish-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, or African-Americans, we will never be true Americans. And we will not view each other as fellow Americans, but as separate tribes that need to be guarded against. Is this the America that our founding fathers would have wanted?
As I stated earlier, I didn't find the book as compelling as I expected. Not that it's not good, but I felt the author could have gone further. All in all, it is a decent starting point for anyone interested in the subject of multi-culturalism.
still a spot on rendering of current immigration I'll admit upfront...I haven't reread this in several years. But I remember the text 's main arguments as if it were last month. Nothing in the ensuing years has undercut Mr Sclesinger's main argument, and much has substantiated it. In fact...one has only to look at the recent riots in France to see that it isn't even a distinctly American phenomenon.
Immigrants now, no matter where they come from, and where they end up, seem not to leave their country of origin with any real desire to assimilate...only to live better with the least amount of cultural conciliation possible.
The main flaw in this book, looking backwards, is that he doesn't delve deeply enough into the real economic drivers of immigration today in his search for the reason why. As I remember, Schlesinger places the blame, if that's the correct term, upon a shift in immigration policies by the U.S. that favors family reunification (as well as a prevailing atmosphere of political correctness) The PC argument is the weakest line of argument., in my mind.
The real culprit in this very true depiction of balkinization within American (and Wester European) society, is the capitalist need for ever more sources of fresh, unskilled, undemanding, easily exploited labor, which will work for substantially less than the going rate and not ask for more, nor question the terms or conditions under which it is employed. By definition, this is an immigrant workforce.
That it is slow to "assimilate" is not hard to comprehend. It doesn't have to. Today's economic structure make's sure that such a transistion is both smooth and many years off into the future, More to the point, the economic forces which benefit from this class of immigrants have shown themselves very adept at passing along the costs of their captive workforce to society at large...in terms of prolonged bilingual education, public education in general for non-citizens, taxpayer subsidized health care for uninsured, undocumented workers, and lower prevailing wages,
I'm a died in the wool liberal...and many liberals took issue with this book. Too bad, really...but as the saying goes...the truth hurts. Read this book. Think about the bilingual education political fracus which shook California a decade and a half ago. This book speaks to that.
I was a Peace Corps Volunteer, not that anyone cares...but just to buttress my liberal credentials. I left the U.S. with one college semester of Spanish, and within three months I was conversant. How many of you know of someone who has lived here in the U.S. for more than a decade and can still hardly communicate in English?
That's what this book is about, on one level. The level in which prevailing economic forces prefer it that way is less explored, unfortunately. We no longer ask that you subscribe to the American dream...only that you accept a job at the Tyson chicken processing plant, and not make a fuss over either the wages nor the unsafe working conditions. If you can do that, plave your hand on this Bible and recite the oathe of allegiance the the United States of America....and be prepared for two political parties vying tooth and nail for your vote in the upcoming election.
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