In this updated and expanded edition, Arthur Schlesinger argues that the image of the American nation as a cultural melting pot in which differences of race, wealth, religion and nationality are submerged in democracy is being replaced by an orthodoxy which celebrates difference and abandons assimilation. He argues for caution in the race to a politics of identity. He examines the international dimension and the lessons learned from other polyglot countries which have been fragmented by cultural divisions: among them, the former Yugoslavia, Nigeria and Canada. Schlesinger finds evidence that efforts to preserve a plurality of cultures in the US threaten to have the same effect.