Multiculturalism

Reflections can be a useful tool in the hands of a historian, and through her reflections author Janet Kerekes has taken readers on a thoughtful and challenging exploration of multiculturalism.Multiculturalism: Reflections gives readers what dense and forbidding academic works and superficial magazines articles have not: a comprehensive yet condensed history of Canada, the first country to adopt multiculturalism; what multiculturalism actually entails; and an examination of multiculturalism's various issues. These include: problems surrounding diversity and inclusiveness, the inherent conflict between immigrants retaining their traditional practices and integration, the issues with superimposing multiculturalism on a nation's history, and the problems with redefining a nation as a country of immigrants. Kerekes questions whether multiculturalism is a viable model everywhere, whether is it permanently viable, and what toll multiculturalism has on societies where it is enforced.Written in a readable and at times amusing way, Multiculturalism: Reflections is an indispensable handbook for anyone interested in a country that has embraced multiculturalism (or dabbled in it), helping them to decide whether this societal model has been beneficial, should be modified in some way, or, like other "e;isms,"e; should be consigned to the dustbin of history.