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Who Are We?
The Challenges To America's National Identity
by Samuel P. Huntington


4.6

based on 14 reviews
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based on 3 votes
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Professor Samuel Huntington turns his attention from international affairs to our domestic cultural rifts as he examines the impact other civilizations and their values are having on the United States. Recently national identity has been eroded by the problems of assimilating massive numbers of primarily Hispanic immigrants, bilingualism, multiculturalism, the devaluation of citizenship, and the "denationalization" of American elites. September 11 brought a revival of American patriotism and a renewal of American identity. But already there are signs that this revival is fading, even though in the post-September 11 world, Americans face unprecedented challenges to our security. Who Are We? shows the need for us to reassert the core values that make us Americans. Nothing less than our national identity is at stake. (Simon & Schuster)

Simon & Schuster, 428 pages
05/2004
$27.00

ISBN: 0684870533

Nonfiction
Current Events & Politics
History

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

The Economist

A scholar ought to be able to pose questions about a subject as important as this, in a book as interesting as this, without being accused of racism.

The Guardian Roy Hattersley

What the remaining superpower thinks of itself determines how it relates to the rest of the world. That - apart from the intrinsic merits of careful scholarship and elegant style - is what makes Samuel Huntingdon's Who Are We? essential reading.

The Nation Daniel Lazare

[Huntington] puts his finger on the key problems besetting the modern nation-state, analyzes them with admirable clarity and then uses such analysis to reach conclusions that are the diametric opposite of what they should be. The results are seductive and powerful and all the more dangerous as a consequence. This is a very bad book precisely because it is so very good.

Wall Street Journal William McGurn

A compelling book on the virtues that make America what it is.

Slate Francis Fukuyama

I am glad that a scholar like Huntington has raised these issues, since they deserve serious discussion and should not be left to the likes of Pat Buchanan and worse to promote.

Kirkus Reviews

A work of serious intent that is certain to arouse controversy.

New York Review Of Books Andrew Hacker

[Huntington] seems to have little close knowledge of the people he writes about; perhaps that is why there seems an undercurrent of fear in his treatment of them.

Publishers Weekly

Exhaustively researched and occasionally inspired, this polemic remains more often filled with colorless and ineffectual writing that will provide evidence for the converted but do little to persuade doubters.

Booklist Brendan Driscoll

He remains, however, highly polemic, with sharp jabs at multiculturalism and bilingualism sure to alienate many readers. [1 May 2004, p.1529]

Boston Globe Ilan Stavans

Huntington is neither fool nor hysteric. He lays out his argument patiently. Unfortunately, his thinking is not grounded in reality. The views he offers of America are rigid, obsolete, and inconsistent.

The New Republic Paul Starr

As an analysis of the problem of national identity and contemporary social and political trends, Who Are We? is always interesting and often insightful. But it is also distorted in its judgments, exaggerated in its fears, and disingenuous about its intentions. It is the work of a serious man gone seriously wrong.

The New York Times Michiko Kakutani

A crotchety, overstuffed and highly polemical book...This book is also pockmarked with perplexing contradictions and curiously blindered observations.

The New Yorker Louis Menand

Huntington's understanding of American culture would be less rigid if he paid more attention to the actual value of his core values. One of the virtues of a liberal democracy is that it is designed to accommodate social and cultural change.

Washington Post Tamar Jacoby

What's most disturbing about Who Are We? is its lack of confidence in the power of American identity. It's as if Huntington can't believe that our tolerant, universalist spirit could possibly stand up to an old-fashioned, ethnic nationalism of the kind that, say, today's Mexican immigrants arrive with.

The average user rating for this book is 4.6 (out of 10) based on 3 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

wan h gave it a2:
America is not belong to the American because they are not the native people there. Histoery told us that they are also immigrant from all over countries througout the world. Since they are also immigrant, so they should understand mexican, hispanic, negro, indian puerto rican, chicano,and so on feeling.

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Who Are We? The Challenges To America's National Identity by Samuel P. Huntington

Who Are We?
The Challenges To America's National Identity
by Samuel P. Huntington