are: Nathan Glazer, Ron Takaki, Thomas Sowell, Robert Blauner, William Julius Wilson, and Charles Murray. The essays are organized in a debate format in order to delineate sharply the different ways scholars approach and understand inequality in our society. The opening two essays immediately usher the reader into the "contested terrain" of perspectives--Glazer's "The Emergence of an American Ethnic Pattern" and Takaki's "Reflections on Racial Patterns in America." The book ends with an exchange on why the poor and minorities have been recently "losing ground."

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