American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (Paperback)

~ Douglas Massey (Author), Nancy Denton (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"During the 1970s and 1980s a word disappeared from the American vocabulary," begins American Apartheid ". . . That word was segregation." But the practice of segregation certainly has not disappeared, as Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton glaringly expose. One-third of all American blacks live in one of just 16 urban areas, in neighborhoods so racially segregated they have almost no chance at interracial contact. The authors argue that segregation--and disassocation from not only other cultures, but other ways of life--is at the root of many problems facing African-Americans today.

From Scientific American

A major contribution to our understanding of both racism and poverty. One hopes that the book will be read, not only by other scholars and policy analysts, but by a broad spectrum of citizens and by all the leaders of the nation.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (July 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674018214
• ISBN-13: 978-0674018211
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #17,441 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #3 in	Books > Science > Earth Sciences > Geography > Regional
  #5 in	Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Sociology > Race Relations > Apartheid
  #15 in	Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Sociology > Race Relations > America

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding and important book, March 4, 2002

By	Elizabeth Anderson (Ann Arbor, MI United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is the most important book explaining the causes of African-American disadvantage in the U.S. today. Packed with data and argumentation, it documents the devastating impact of residential segregation on African-American socioeconomic prospects. One of the best features of the book is the way it subsumes other prominant explanations of African-American disadvantage--for example, William J. Wilson's spatial-mismatch hypothesis, and "culture of poverty"/"black cultural pathology" theories--within its theoretical framework.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic analysis of racial inequality in the North, March 20, 2008

By	Richard Gibson "Rick Gibson" (Woodland Hills, CA) - See all my reviews

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This book describes the process by which blacks and whites ended up living in largely different sections of each major city in the North. It thus fills in a very important part of the story over race relations in America. We all know about Jim Crow in the South, and how legalized segregation worked in he post Civil War pre Civil Rights South. Most of us do not know, however, how the North treated blacks during the same timer period.

This book tells us. The short story is that, while most ethnic groups tend to live by themselves to some degree, out of natural desire, black ghetttos were created by very conscious, very deliberate discrimination over a long period of time. This book tells the whole sorry history of racial covenants, discriminatory lending and the rest of it. A very valuable and important book.

17 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lucy Aitkens, March 11, 2002

By	lucy aitkens (London, Boston) - See all my reviews

This remains, without question, one of the most excellent and insightful assessments of race in America. Whether you are a US citizen or an international visitor to the US this book is fundmental to understanding the hidden dimensions of ongoing racial division. Read it and pass it on in the hope that people will recognise the irrefutable evidence of racial segregation offered by Massey and Denton.