race, wealth, religion and nationality are submerged in democracy is being replaced by an orthodoxy which celebrates difference and abandons assimilation. He argues for caution in the race to a politics of identity. He examines the international dimension and the lessons learned from other polyglot countries which have been fragmented by cultural divisions: among them, the former Yugoslavia, Nigeria and Canada. Schlesinger finds evidence that efforts to preserve a plurality of cultures in the US threaten to have the same effect.

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