Theories of Ethnicity: A Classical Reader

From the horrors of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia to debates over multiculturalism, ethnicity has, once again, become a global preoccupation. But what exactly do we mean when we speak of ethnicity? And when and how did ethnicity become such an important area of cultural expression and identification that people are ready to die and to kill for it?

Gathering the work of some of our most original thinkers, Theories of Ethnicity provides, in one convenient volume, the most probing and frequently cited considerations of such topics as the melting pot and pluralism, race and race problems, migration and marginality, assimilation and transnationalism, intermarriage, kinship and religion, boundary-construction and maintenance, and the important role of power relations for ethnicity. Contributors include such intellects as Max Weber, Carl Gustav Jung, Margaret Mead, Georg Simmel, Erik Erikson, Karl Mannheim, Fredrik Barth, and Herbert Gans. Theories of Ethnicity grounds much current sociological, cultural, and political research on ethnicity in a theoretical foundation that has heretofore been lacking, providing an important historical base for ongoing and future work on this timely subject.

Werner Sollors is Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English Literature and Professor of Afro-American Studies and Chair of the History of American Civilization Program at Harvard University. He is the author and editor of numerous books, including The Multilingual Anthology of American Literature, Theories of Ethnicity: A Classical Reader, and Multilingual America: Transnationalism, Ethnicity, and the Languages of American Literature, all available from NYU Press.