The Construction of Minorities: Cases for Comparison Across Time and Around the WorldAndré Burguière, Raymond Grew How does a minority come to be? In an unusual project, a notable group of French and American scholars take the view that minorities are socially constructed. Their original studies of specific historical examples produce a series of stimulating and provocative essays useful and enjoyable for specialists and the general reader alike. Spawned from a conference organized by the journals Annales and Comparative Studies in Society and History in concert with the Center for Historical Research at l'EHESS in Paris and the Department of History at the University of Michigan, this collection contrasts studies of Afro-Americans in the United States, French Protestants, notables in Renaissance Florence, religious minorities in the Ottoman Empire, Muslim and Chinese traders in Southeast Asia, the native peoples of Spanish America, lower-caste Indians, ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union, Australian aborigines, and American and French responses to AIDS to reveal valuable information about how minorities come to be constructed within societies. Some of the minorities considered are identified primarily in terms of their ethnicity, some by social class, and some by religion (Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim); a final essay asks whether the victims of AIDS constitute a minority at all. With its cross-cultural emphasis, this book will be a valuable addition to courses on diversity, ethnicity, and cultural comparison. It is destined to be a useful reference for undergraduate and research libraries and a much-consulted work for specialists on each of the societies considered. André Burguière is Research Director, l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (l'EHESS) in Paris. Raymond Grew is Professor of History Emeritus, University of Michigan. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Constructing African Americans as Minorities | 15 |
Comment | 39 |
Nobles or Pariahs? The Exclusion of Florentine Magnates from the Thirteenth to the Fifteenth Centuries | 45 |
Imagining the Huguenot Minority in Old Regime France | 65 |
Comment | 89 |
Intercommunal Relations and Changes in Religious Affiliation in the Middle East Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries | 99 |
Comment | 121 |
Constituting the Majority as a Minority | 171 |
Comment | 194 |
The Postcolonial Politics of Caste in India | 213 |
The Politics of National Boundaries in the Soviet Experience | 245 |
Comment | 265 |
BloodRace History and the State in Australia | 269 |
Comment | 288 |
AIDS in French Society | 299 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Aboriginal African Americans AIDS Andean argued Armenians assimilation Australia backward backward classes Bashkirs became become Bensa Bien blacks British Calas Affair Calvinists Camisard caste Catholic Central Asia Chinese Christians church citizens civil claims colonial constituted construction context conversion Creole cultural Cuzco debate defined disease economic empire essays ethnic European France Franciscans French Ghurye Greeks half-castes homosexuals Huguenots Ibid idea identity ideology Inca Indians indigenous individual Islam issue Jewish Jews land language Latin lived magnates majority Mandal Mandal Commission Maronite marriage ment Mexico minority group modern movement Muslim nineteenth century noted organized Paris percent Peru political popolani population practice Protestants Quechua question race racial region religion religious republics reservations role seventeenth century sida social society Soviet Spanish Studies term tion Todd Endelman traditional University Press untouchables urban Uzbek V. P. Singh York
References to this book
Comparison and History: Europe in Cross-national Perspective Deborah Cohen,Maura O'Connor Limited preview - 2004 |