cover image Tribes: How Race, Religion, and Identity Determine Success in the New Global Economy

Tribes: How Race, Religion, and Identity Determine Success in the New Global Economy

Joel Kotkin. Random House (NY), $24 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-679-41282-3

In this intriguing, sometimes frustrating, survey of the interaction between ethnicity and prosperity, journalist Kotkin (coauthor of The Third Century: America's Resurgence in the Asian Era ) focuses on five groups--the Jews, British, Japanese, Chinese and Indians--to demonstrate that ethnic identity, global networks and a passion for technical knowledge foster success. Drawing on reportage as well as scholarship, Kotkin often argues his thesis persuasively--especially since the Jews, Chinese and Indians in diaspora exhibit some similar characteristics. But his designation of the British as a ``tribe'' is arguable, and he discounts how economic conditions, not just cultural ones, shaped mercantile capitalism. Failing to explore such important questions as the future of assimilated American Jews, Kotkin glosses over ethnic conflicts such as the Los Angeles riots. After nominating the Palestinians, Armenians and Mormons, among others, as emerging global tribes, he proposes--with little accompanying political analysis--that societies that nurture such groups ``seem most likely to flourish.'' (Jan.)