Race and Ethnic Relations - American and Global Perspectives - Review of Martin N Marger's Book

This book is mostly geared to the collegegenocide, resurgencies of nationalism, breaking up
sociology student and the instructor, and startsof Yugoslavia, the Iraq conflict, and the issue of
with chapters on sociological theories on race andNorthern Ireland. The magnitude of information
ethnicity. Marger thereafter goes on to treatpacked in this 600-page book is unimaginable. The
major factors and histories of the major racialworld is presented as one of stereotypes, of
groups in the United states (White Ethnicdiscrimination, of assimilation; race and ethnic
Americans, native Americans, Asian Americans,relationships are fluid and change everyday.
Hispanic Americans, African Americans and JewishHow Arab-Americans, Hispanics, Jews, etc., are
Americans).portrayed and treated is all dealt with in this book.
Marger comes across as a dedicated andMarger walks you through easily readable details
enthusiastic scholar, he balances the prejudices,of the socio-histories, establishments, encounters,
misconceptions, projections of the races with theirchallenges, and privileges of the social groups in
histories in the United States. Whites havethe United States and other notable regions of
differential histories, as Irish, Germans, Russians,the world. This book is bound to be an enduring
British, etc. He breaks down their entrance intoone, and should be upheld not only by the
the United states, the prejudices they haveacademic student and instructor, but by anyone
faced, their incomes and power relative to otherwho wants to walk through comprehensive
whites and to other races, how they viewtheories and sociohistories of peoples all over the
themselves. Marger is strong on portraying thatworld from the past to the present.
the United States has largely been dominated byThe reader attains a commendable grasp of what
WASP's (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) thoughis happening in the world right now, as related to
the dynamic has largely changed over the pastwhat had happened in the past! Once you start
few decades with the overwhelming influxes ofreading this book, your eyes will become opened
immigrants and access to power.to aspects you had never thought about, and
It is amazing how Marger refers to countlessthat you had only heard of, naively. This is an
hundreds of sources! The bibliography is veryexciting volume on global perspectives and reality,
extensive. In the third part of the book, Margerone that is hard to put down after you start
examines race, ethnicity, socio-historically byreading it. This is bound to be an enduring text,
examining the significant examples of South Africaand Marger likely revises it every couple of years
(apartheid and majority rule, etc.), then Brazil, thenso as for it to be in tune with what is happening
Canada (notably the Quebec-French issue). Thetoday... though he does not deprive us of what
very last chapter (16) gets into salient exampleshappened in the past!
of conflict and change--the notable Rwandan