Publisher Description
The promise of America has always been that of a fresh economic start on equal footing. This is linked to the classic image of the republic as a melting pot, where differences of class, race, and religion are submerged in the pursuit of democracy. But today, the idea of assimilation into the mainstream is giving ground to the cult of ethnicity. While this upsurge in ethnic awareness has had many healthy consequences in a nation shamed by a history of prejudice, if pressed too far, it could fragment American society to a dangerous degree.
In this powerfully argued essay, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., examines the lessons of one polyglot country after another tearing itself apart or on the brink of doing so, and points out troubling new evidence that multiculturalism gone awry here in the United States threatens to do the same.
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About the Author
Arthur
Meier Schlesinger, Jr., (1917–2007) was an American historian, social critic,
and public intellectual. Specializing in American history, much of Schlesinger’s
work explored the history of twentieth-century American liberalism. In
particular, his work focused on leaders such as Harry Truman, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy. A Pulitzer Prize winner,
Schlesinger served as special assistant and “court historian” to President
Kennedy from 1961 to 1963. He wrote a detailed account of the Kennedy
Administration, from the transition period to the president’s state funeral,
titled A Thousand Days. In 1968, Schlesinger actively supported the
presidential campaign of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, which ended with Kennedy’s
assassination in Los Angeles. Schlesinger wrote the popular biography Robert
Kennedy and His Times several years later. He later popularized the term “imperial
presidency” during the Nixon administration in his book of the same name. In 1967, he was awarded the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for History.
About the Narrator
Jeff Riggenbach has narrated numerous titles for Blackstone Audio and won an AudioFile Earphones Award. An author, contributing editor, and producer, he has worked in radio in San Francisco for the last thirty years, earning a Golden Mike Award for journalistic excellence.