American Ethnicity: The Dynamics and Consequences of Discrimination

Lacking 2009-11-02

Reviewer: Elizabeth Redford

This book covers a lot of information that we all know, and has chapters for each race. However, the authors neglect to mention multiracial or even multiethnic people, even including a chart that shows the future of America being entirely monoracial. Minority groups are forecasted to grow, but multiracial people remain invisible and are not even granted a group. If these authors can go to the trouble of systematically avoiding the fact of my existence, it makes me wonder how academically inclined they really are.

Greatful 2007-06-26

Reviewer: Douglas Triplett

The book was promtly shipped and I was able to complete my summur cours assignment early.

Happy 2006-03-21

Reviewer: Ashley Hunter

I have no concerns with the product and am happy with what I've paid for.

One of the better textbooks on American ethnic groups 2005-04-17

Reviewer: Vato-Curandero

All in all, I'd have to say that this is one of the better textbooks on the market today dealing with American ethnic groups (but that's not really saying much). My biggest critique with such textbooks is that, all to often, they engage in culturalist essentialism. Furthermore, it is often implied that all members of said group behave in this fashion and "practice" this culture. The obvious fallacy of such an approach is that it fails to acknowledge that ethnicity is an emergent (rather than primordial) phenomenon, and that culture changes over time.

American Ethnicity for the most part is a decent textbook for courses focusing on racial and ethnic relations. I still think the best textbook in this area is Martin Marger's "Racial and Ethnic Relations: American and Global Perspectives." However, American Ethnicity is much cheaper in price. The authors employ a power-conflict perspective in their analysis of inter-ethnic conflict; tensions between groups are seen as an outgrowth of competition for access to jobs, education, housing, health care, and other services and institutions. For instructors, the book has an excellent Instructor's Resources CD-Rom, loaded with chapter outlines, multiple choice/essay/true-false quizzes and tests, and a list of films relating to the chapters.

However, there are some key criticisms of this book. Arab Americans are completely omitted, save a few lines about September 11 early in the book. As one of the fastest growing communities in the U.S., I would think textbooks would be inclusive of Arab Americans. Second, I really wish the photographs would be printed in full color, rather than black and white. Third, I would like to see a section on racial and ethnic relations in a few other nations (a la Marger's Racial and Ethnic Relations).

However, if you are looking for a relatively inexpensive textbook for a social science course on racial/ethnic relations, you should consider taking a look at American Ethnicity.