Book Review

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Book Review | The Journal of American History, 86.4 | The History Cooperative

Beyond Pluralism: The Conception of Groups and Group Identities in America. Ed. by Wendy F. Katkin, Ned Landsman, and Andrea Tyree. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998. x, 281 pp. Cloth, $49.95, isbn 0-252-02385-4. Paper, $19.95, isbn 0-252-06685-5.)

The original impetus for this book was a conference held in 1992 while the "culture wars" were raging. With admirable foresight the organizers felt urged to "transcend the overly politicized nature of the debate by historicizing the problem, looking at the parameters within which the discussion had developed and the manner in which . . . seemingly irreconcilable categories had come about." Unfortunately, it has taken six years for the proceedings to find their way into print. In the meantime one-third of the nine essays have already appeared elsewhere, two of them (David Hollinger's "Post-Ethnic America" and Werner Sollors's "The Multiculturalism Debate as Cultural Text") becoming "must" reading on group identities. Yet this does not detract from the significance of the volume. The editors' only fault in an otherwise commendable job is that their introduction should have filled the gap between then and now with a discussion of recent developments. . . .

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