2nd Edition

Culture and Diversity in the United States So Many Ways to Be American

By Jack David Eller Copyright 2025
    384 Pages 73 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    384 Pages 73 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This book addresses the standard topics of race, ethnicity, class, and gender but goes much further by engaging seriously with issues of language, religion, age, health and disability, and region and geography. It also considers the intersections between and the diversities within these categories. Eller presents students with an unprecedented combination of history, conceptual analysis, discussion of academic literature, and up-to-date statistics. The book includes a range of illustrations, figures and tables, text boxes, a glossary of key terms, and a comprehensive bibliography. New to this edition are updated numerical and statistical data, as well as discussions of sociopolitical developments over the past decade, including

    • The controversies over the 2020 census itself (e.g. the “citizenship question,” funding for the census)

    • The #MeToo movement

    • The Black Lives Matter movement, Critical Race Theory, and race-related police violence

    • The rise in racial, ethnic, and religious hate crimes, e.g. anti-Semitism and anti-Asian bias (the latter largely resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic)

    • White nationalism and the “Great Replacement” conspiracy

    • Anti-LGBT attitudes and legislation (“don’t say gay” laws, book banning, denial of “gender-affirming” treatment for minors)

    • General immigration facts and policies (e.g. family separation), the proposed border wall, etc.

    This book is ideal for introductory and advance level courses in anthropology, American Studies, and across the social sciences.

    About This Book

    Chapter 1          Thinking about Diversity

    Chapter 2          Inter-group Relations and the History of Diversity in the U.S.

    Chapter 3          Race and Racial Thinking

    Chapter 4          Race and Ethnicity: Beyond the Black/White Binary

    Chapter 5          Class and Socioeconomic Inequality

    Chapter 6          Sex and Gender: Male and Female

    Chapter 7          Sex and Gender: Beyond the Gender Binary

    Chapter 8          Age and Generation

    Chapter 9          Language

    Chapter 10        Religion

    Chapter 11        Health and (Dis)ability

    Chapter 12        Region and Geographical Distribution

    Biography

    Jack David Eller is a cultural anthropologist, Head of Anthropology of Religion with the Global Center for Religious Research, and Distinguished Professor of Anthropology with Woxsen University. His research interests include religion, psychological anthropology, violence, and ethnicity and diversity. An experienced teacher and author, his other books for Routledge include Cultural Anthropology: Global Forces, Local Lives; Introducing Anthropology of Religion; and Psychological Anthropology for the 21st Century.