Review by Choice Review
For centuries, scholars and commentators have sought to explain the character of America and American identity, a discourse Montalvo-Barbot (Emporia State Univ.) skillfully traces in this text. In 1782, the writer St. Jean de Crevecoeur first invoked the idea of "individuals of all nations … melted into a new race of men" (p. 5), germinating the idea of America as a melting pot. Israel Zangwill further popularized the melting pot theme in his play of the same name in 1908. By WW I, however, critics feared that the new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe were unfit, unassimilable, and "unmeltable." Other voices advocated cultural pluralism instead of the erasure of culture in the melting pot. Later, in his famous text An American Dilemma (1944), Gunner Myrdal brought attention to the failure of American democracy to provide equal rights and treatment to African Americans. By the 1960s racial minorities would contest assimilation and push for multiculturalism and the development of ethnic studies. Today an "intercultural" movement seeks the "open and respectful exchange of views among people from different backgrounds" (p. 94). The American experiment, it seems, is open-ended and ever evolving. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals. --Wayne C. Glasker, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Camden
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
