SOURCE: A review of A Place for Us: How to Make Society Civil and Democracy Strong, in New Leader, Vol. 81, No. 8, June 29, 1998, pp. 18–20.

In the following review, Clausen summarizes Barber's position in regard to Communitarians and multiculturalists and agrees that the communities formed by ethnic groups that multiculturalists encourage often espouse attitudes of intolerance and thus pose a threat to true democracy.

When Californians decided on June 2 to eliminate most bilingual classes in public schools, the many Asians and Hispanics who voted with the majority were following the lead of virtually every immigrant group since the United States began. Bilingual educators and professional multiculturalists bemoaned the vote as nativist, racist, even imperialistic, but its true meaning transcends those tired clichés. Two new books from opposite ends of the political spectrum examine what is going on as the melting pot unfashionably shows there's a blaze in the old...