The Crisis of Multiculturalism in Europe - by Rita Chin (Paperback)
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Highlights
- A history of modern European cultural pluralism, its current crisis, and its uncertain future In 2010, the leaders of Germany, Britain, and France each declared that multiculturalism had failed in their countries.
- About the Author: Rita Chin is professor of history at the University of Michigan.
- 384 Pages
- History, Europe
Description
Book Synopsis
A history of modern European cultural pluralism, its current crisis, and its uncertain future
In 2010, the leaders of Germany, Britain, and France each declared that multiculturalism had failed in their countries. Over the past decade, a growing consensus in Europe has voiced similar decrees. But what do these ominous proclamations, from across the political spectrum, mean? Looking at the touchstones of European multiculturalism, from the urgent need for laborers after World War II to the question of French girls wearing headscarves to school, The Crisis of Multiculturalism in Europe examines the historical development of multiculturalism on the Continent. Rita Chin argues that there were few efforts to institute state-sponsored policies of multiculturalism, and shows that today's crisis of support for cultural pluralism isn't new but actually has its roots in the 1980s. Contending that renouncing the principles of diversity brings social costs, Chin considers how Europe might construct an effective political engagement with its varied population.From the Back Cover
"Rita Chin's indispensable and timely book brilliantly analyzes the ideological obfuscation involved in the claim by Western Europeans, on the right and left, that 'multiculturalism' has failed. Instead, Chin suggests, it was never really tried. Exploring the roots of past racism and its new secularist forms today, Chin casts a sobering and troubling look at the intolerance of difference in Europe."--Samuel Moyn, author of Christian Human Rights
"There are several other books about multiculturalism in modern Europe, but none to my knowledge bring to bear the same level of historical depth and systematic comparative analysis found in Chin's excellent work. This is not only a key text in the history of multiculturalism in contemporary Europe, but it adds a new dimension to the broader history of Europe since 1945. A pleasure to read."--Tyler Stovall, University of California, Santa Cruz
"This book offers much to admire. It provides extensive coverage of a timely, important topic, and the comparative approach is original."--Jordanna Bailkin, University of Washington
Review Quotes
"A lucid and erudite overview of the debate."--Malise Ruthven, Financial Times
"Chin analyzes the current debates in Europe over immigration and Western values to create a vivid picture of a continent consumed by social tensions. The questions [she] poses have never seemed more urgent."--Radhika Jones, New York Times Book Review
"Chin has produced a well-researched and readable study of policies toward immigrant communities in Great Britain, France, and, to a lesser extent, Germany, from immediately after WWII to the present."--Publishers Weekly
"Lucidly written and resourcefully argued, [this book] is a superb example of a scholarly intervention in a public debate dominated by unexamined prejudice."--Pankaj Mishra, New York Times Book Review
About the Author
Rita Chin is professor of history at the University of Michigan. She is the author of The Guest Worker Question in Postwar Germany and the coauthor of After the Nazi Racial State. She was recently awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship.