The Ethnic Myth Race, Ethnicity, and Class in America

by Steinberg, Stephen

• ISBN13: 9780807041536
• ISBN10: 080704153X
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-01-16
• Publisher: Beacon Press

Summary

You hold in your hand a dangerous book. Because it rejects as it clarifies most of the current wisdom on race, ethnicity, and immigration in the United States, The Ethnic Myth has the force of a scholarly bomb. --from the Introduction by Eric William Lott In this classic work, sociologist Stephen Steinberg rejects the prevailing view that cultural values and ethnic traits are the primary determinants of the economic destiny of racial and ethnic groups in America. He argues that locality, class conflict, selective migration, and other historical and economic factors play a far larger role not only in producing inequalities but in maintaining them as well, thus providing an insightful explanation into why some groups are successful in their pursuit of the American dream and others are not.

Author Biography

Stephen Steinberg, author of The Ethnic Myth, teaches in the Department of Urban Studies at Queens College and the Ph.D. program in sociology at the Graduate Center at City University of New York.

Table of Contents

Foreword	viii
Eric Lott
Preface to the Updated Edition	xii
Preface: The Demystification of Ethnicity	xv
PART ONE: THE SIMMERING MELTING POT
Introduction: The New Ethnicity in Historical Perspective	3	(2)
The Ignominious Origins of Ethnic Pluralism in America	5	(39)
The Ethnic Crisis in American Society	44	(38)
PART TWO: SOCIAL CLASS AND ETHNIC MYTHS
Introduction: The New Darwinism	77	(5)
The Myth of Ethnic Success: The Jewish Horatio Alger Story	82	(24)
The Culture of Poverty Reconsidered	106	(22)
Education and Ethnic Mobility: The Myth of Jewish Intellectualism and Catholic Anti-Intellectualism	128	(23)
Why Irish Became Domestics and Italians and Jews Did Not	151	(22)
PART THREE: THE CLASS CHARACTER OF RACIAL AND ETHNIC CONFLICT
Introduction: The ``Iron Law of Ethnicity'' Revised	169	(4)
The Reconstruction of Black Servitude after the Civil War	173	(28)
Racial and Ethnic Conflict in the Twentieth Century	201	(21)
The ``Jewish Problem'' in American Higher Education	222	(31)
Dilemmas and Contradictions of Ethnic Pluralism in America	253	(50)
Epilogue
Ethnic Heroes and Racial Villains in American Social Science	263	(40)
Index	303	(16)
Acknowledgments	319