Disuniting of America or Divided America

Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society (Revised and Enlarged Edition)

Author: Arthur M Schlesinger Jr

Setting the American experience against a global backdrop in which one nation after another is tearing itself apart, Schlesinger emphasizes the question: What is it that holds nations together? The classic American image was of the "melting pot," in which differences of race, religion, and nationality were reduced, however unevenly, by common adherence to unifying civic principles. Today that image is challenged by an identity politics that magnifies differences and abandons goals of integration and assimilation. Must we surrender national identity to ethnic lobbies? Is hypersensitivity on the question of language handicapping minority children? Is the purpose of teaching history to make minorities feel good about themselves? Or is it rather to teach an accurate understanding of the world and to protect unifying ideals of tolerance, democracy, and human rights? Strident multiculturalism, Schlesinger contends, is an ill-judged and wrong-headed response to the real problem: the persistence, despite many gains, of racism in the white majority. In a world scarred by ethnic conflict, he writes, it is all the more urgent that the United States set an example of how a highly differentiated society holds itself together. In this new and enlarged edition, more timely than ever, Schlesinger updates the discussion, assesses recent developments, points to factors that promise to defeat the disuniting of America, points also to the dangers of strident monoculturalism on the right, and adds "Schlesinger's syllabus" - an annotated list of a baker's dozen of book essential for understanding the American experience.

Publishers Weekly

In a courageous, important, forcefully argued essay, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Schlesinger contends that America as melting pot has given way to an "eruption of ethnicity'' that threatens to replace assimilation with fragmentation, and integration with separatism. As a case in point, he critiques Afrocentric curricula in schools and colleges which, in his view, glorify a mythic past and make such highly dubious claims as the notion that black Africa is the birthplace of science, philosophy, religion and technology, and the trendy but totally unsubstantiated theory that ancient Egypt was essentially a black African country. Those who attempt to use the schools for "social and psychological therapy'' to promote minority self-esteem are doomed to failure, asserts Schlesinger, because "feel-good history'' is factually flawed and does not equip students to grapple with their lives. Schools should certainly teach about other cultures and continents, he stresses, while faulting multiculturalists who forget that Europe is the unique source of liberating ideas of individual autonomy, political democracy and cultural freedom to which most of the world today aspires. The book was originally published in 1991 by Whittle Communications for selective distribution.

Table of Contents:

	Foreword to the Second Edition	9
	Foreword	11
1	"A New Race"?	29
2	History the Weapon	51
3	The Battle of the Schools	79
4	The Decomposition of America	105
5	E Pluribus Unum?	125
	Epilogue	149
App	Schlesinger's Syllabus	167
	Notes on Sources	181
	Index	199

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Divided America: The Ferocious Power Struggle in American Politics

Author: Earl Black

Now with an updated Afterword—in which the authors show how the 2006 midterm elections and the Democratic takeover of Congress validate their argument about regional divisions and why and how they will dominate the 2008 presidential election—Divided America tells the biggest story in American politics today: how new regional divisions are tearing the country's politics apart, turning both major parties into minority parties and encouraging angry constituencies to wage increasingly nasty wedge-issue campaigns.

The Washington Post - Donna Brazile

Before any of the 2008 candidates start counting their electoral votes, they should read the latest book by Earl and Merle Black.

In their scholarly and ambitious Divided America, the Black brothers -- political scientists who have written extensively on the politics of my native South -- offer a thoughtful, thorough analysis of the undercurrents that have driven our polarized national politics in recent decades. Their clear text, supported by voluminous charts and graphs, illustrates how deeply divided the country has become -- and perhaps not along the lines readers will expect.

Publishers Weekly

Politics by the numbers is the modus operandi of the Black brothers, twins who teach political science (Earl at Rice University, Merle at Emory University). Having focused on politics in the Southern states in three previous academic collaborations, the Blacks now divide the United States into five regions (South, Northeast, Pacific Coast, Midwest, Mountains/Plains), and explain how and why national electoral politics have become a close contest between two parties, Democrats and Republicans, that cannot claim permanent majority status. Most of the election data they examine comes from presidential elections; their analysis of races for the House of Representatives and the Senate come toward the end and are out of kilter with the results of the November 2006 House and Senate elections. Still, the Blacks' generalizations deserve consideration. They believe the Democrats are quite likely to retain advantages in the Northeast and Pacific Coast regions, while the Republicans are quite likely to win the South and Mountains/Plains regions in the 2008 election. That leaves the Midwest as the swing region. (The Blacks define the Midwest as 10 states, including Kentucky and West Virginia.) Though the book will probably fascinate politics junkies, the emphasis on statistics rather than lively anecdotes means rough going for qualitative rather than quantitative minds. 34 charts and tables. (Mar.)

Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Why have recent US national elections been so close? It's the regions, stupid. In an analysis of election data and exit polls of the past five decades, political scientists Earl (Political Science/Rice Univ.) and Merle (Politics and Government/Emory Univ.), twin brothers and coauthors (The Rise of Southern Republicans, 2003, etc.), show that the Democrats and Republicans are now evenly balanced in the national electorate, each having two regional strongholds and battling for voters in the ten-state Midwest swing region. The authors note that this development may be traced back to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, which ended a Democratic advantage among white voters dating to the New Deal. Reagan realigned white voters, with conservative whites going to the Republicans (now redefined as a conservative party emphasizing national security, economic growth, lower taxes and traditional positions on cultural and religious matters) and liberal whites increasingly joining the Democrats. It was the beginning of the end of the party factions once known as liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats. Trends continued gradually, and by 2004, the parties were more polarized than ever, with Republicans now drawing their strength from the South and Mountains/Plains states, the Democrats from the Northeast and Pacific Coast. These sharp regional differences now drive American politics, say the authors, and have ushered in an era of highly competitive, ideologically contentious and close elections. Goodbye, landslides. The Republican Party is now dominated by white Protestants (with evangelicals comprising 59 percent of them in 2004), the Democrats by minorities and non-Christian whites, andneither party can win a national election with only the support of their regional strongholds. Hence, the Midwest battleground will continue to determine the outcome of our elections. Using charts, the authors explore facets of their regional analysis and show how easy it is for national elections to go either way. Bedside reading for Karl Rove wannabes preparing for 2008. Agent: Andrew Wylie/Wylie Agency