As the 2000 census resoundingly demonstrated; the Anglo-Protestant ethnic core of the United States has all but dissolved. In a country founded and settled by their ancestors; British Protestants now make up less than a fifth of the population. This demographic shift has spawned a "culture war" within white America. While liberals seek to diversify society toward a cosmopolitan endpoint; some conservatives strive to maintain an American ethno-national identity. Eric Kaufmann traces the roots of this culture war from the rise of WASP America after the Revolution to its fall in the 1960s; when social institutions finally began to reflect the nation's ethnic composition. Kaufmann begins his account shortly after independence; when white Protestants with an Anglo-Saxon myth of descent established themselves as the dominant American ethnic group. But from the late 1890s to the 1930s; liberal and cosmopolitan ideological currents within white Anglo-Saxon Protestant America mounted a powerful challenge to WASP hegemony. This struggle against ethnic dominance was mounted not by subaltern immigrant groups but by Anglo-Saxon reformers; notably Jane Addams and John Dewey. It gathered social force by the 1920s; struggling against WASP dominance and achieving institutional breakthrough in the late 1960s; when America truly began to integrate ethnic minorities into mainstream culture.
#3506545 in Books Longman 1997-01-13Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 10.00 x .75 x 8.00l; #File Name: 0673980049412 pages
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