SOURCE: "The Ghetto— A Re-Evaluation," in Social Forces, Vol. 37, No. 3, March, 1959, pp. 255-62.

In the following essay, occasioned by the republication of The Ghetto more than a quarter-century after its original release, Etzioni critiques the seminal work.

The republication of The Ghetto by Louis Wirth¹ seems to be an appropriate occasion for a re-evaluation² of his thesis. It is of importance to state at the very beginning of this discussion that, although some concepts and conclusions of Wirth will be sharply criticized, in general this is one of the most important studies of the sociology of the Jews, a much neglected field.³

Wirth's study presents a theory as well as considerable evidence which disproves it. The theory applied in The Ghetto is Park's model of a natural history of race and ethnic relations. The pattern of interaction among different ethnic groups passes through the stages of isolation, competition...