Book analysis

I would like to answer on very interesting question in this paper. This question is sounds in the next way: Why is the United States not a white man’s nation? I think that in answering on this question it will be good to analyze the book “Natives and Strangers: A Multicultural History of Americans” written by Leonard Dinnerstein, Roger L Nichol and David M Reimers, that was published in 2004. In my opinion, this book can be used as primary source for this paper and in the next several pages we will find the right answer on the above formulated question.
Discussing contemporary situation in the country it is necessary to mark out that the last decade of XX century brought many changes in America, and we can define them as the end of the Cold War, computer and telecommunications revolution, that began to transform both the economy and lifestyle. In addition, we can say that the new wave of “immigration” has made American society more diverse, contributing to the fact that one reviewer called “the first universal nation.” The heart of these rapid changes is the further evolution of America through its strengths and weaknesses. An important role is played by racial and ethnic factors – from it to a great extent depends the country’s future. Ethnic situation, now established in America, is inextricably linked to global ethnic crisis, which has already become a real threat to international security.
Facing humanity in the late XX century, the national ethnic issue is one of the most painful, ethnic conflicts that is repeated many times in different parts of the globe, which suggests the existence of certain regularities. On the scale of humanity the national question, there is a confrontation between the two trends. Both of them are objective, both implemented in the will, the actions of millions of people. The first – is in the movement of nations to self-determination and independence, and the second, on the contrary – is in pursuit of the formation of large multi-ethnic communities, to create powerful “supernation”, where organically would be connected ethnic groups, different traditions and cultures. Which of them would be dominant, which belongs to the future?Book analysis
And although both of these trends have a purpose – to overcome all the old and new forms of national and ethnic inequality, i.e. democratization of international and ethnic relationships, the problem would be preferable ways to address this paramount task of history. In our case, America is a field for cooperation of ethnic groups and races within the “supernation” concept, which in itself does not guarantee success, as a high risk of ethnic clashes. Because the existing structure of American “supernation” in the context of growing liberalism does not provide sufficient guarantees for the democratic development of any society, nor for its economic prosperity.
Authors of the analyzed book stated that “Fewer people have negative thoughts about individuals from other groups and certainly there is less discrimination than existed before 1945. Supreme Court decisions and federal legislation have forced all Americans to think differently about, and treat, those who are different from themselves with more humanity. Thus Jews, Poles, Irish, Italians, Asians, African Americans, American Indians, and others who had been scorned, excluded, and victimized by prejudice in yesteryear found bigotry on the wane in this country. The growth of tolerance, however, brought about neither a cultural utopia where all groups enjoyed equal respect nor did it mean that the nation had at long last achieved its famous melting pot.” ((Dinnerstein, Nichol and Reimers, 2003)