Pax Ethnica: Where and How Diversity Succeeds [Hardcover]

In a world replete with stories of sectarian violence, we are often left wondering: Are there places where people of different ethnicities, especially with significant Muslim minorities, live in peace? If so, why haven't we heard more about them, and what explains their success?

To answer these questions, Karl Meyer and Shareen Brysac undertook a two-year exploration of oases of civility, places notable for minimal violence, rising life-expectancy, high literacy, and pragmatic compromises on cultural rights. They explored the Indian state of Kerala, the Russian republic of Tatarstan, the city of Marseille in France, the city of Flensburg, Germany, and the borough of Queens, New York. Through scores of interviews, they document ways and means that have proven successful in defusing ethnic tensions. This pathbreaking book elegantly blends political history, sociology, anthropology, and journalism, to provide big ideas for peace.Karl E. Meyer, a Princeton PhD, served on theNew York Timeseditorial board, and previously was a foreign correspondent and editorial writer on theWashington Post. He is author of a dozen books includingDust of Empire, and is emeritus editor of theWorld Policy Journal.

Shareen Blair Brysacwas a prize-winning documentary producer for CBS News and is author ofResisting Hitler: Mildred Fish Harnack and the Red Orchestra. Together they wroteTournament of ShadowsandKingmakers: The Invention of the Modern Middle East. The couple live in New York City and Weston, Connecticut.Winnipeg Free Press
“This informative look at successful immigration hubs worldwide explores what New York-based American academics Karl Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac call ‘oases of civility.'… it is not overburdened by specialized jargon or turgid academic prose. Non-specialists in the social sciences will find it accessible and, because of the breadth of the subject mlƒƒ