Ethnocentrism—our tendency to partition the human world into in-groups and out-groups—pervades societies around the world. Surprisingly, though, few scholars have explored its role in political life. Donald Kinder and Cindy Kam fill this gap with Us Against Them, their definitive explanation of how ethnocentrism shapes American public opinion. Arguing that humans are broadly predisposed to ethnocentrism, Kinder and Kam explore its impact on our attitudes toward an array of issues, including the war on terror, humanitarian assistance, immigration, the sanctity of marriage, and the reform of social programs. The authors ground their study in previous theories from a wide range of disciplines, establishing a new framework for understanding what ethnocentrism is and how it becomes politically consequential. They also marshal a vast trove of survey evidence to identify the conditions under which ethnocentrism shapes public opinion. While ethnocentrism is widespread in the United States, the authors demonstrate that its political relevance depends on circumstance. Exploring the implications of these findings for political knowledge, cosmopolitanism, and societies outside the United States, Kinder and Kam add a new dimension to our understanding of how democracy functions.

Ken Booth’s study, first published in 1979, investigates the way in which cultural distortions have affected the theory and execution of strategy. Its aim is to illustrate the importance of ethnocentrism in all areas of the subject, to follow through its implications and to suggest approaches to the different problems it poses. Insights are offered into the character of a number of important issues in Cold War international politics, including the superpower arms race, détente, the Middle Eastern crisis, the Soviet arms build-up and the SALT talks. In light of the cost of modern warfare, it is all the more important to avoid strategic failures in the future. Strategy and Ethnocentrism aims to alert students of military and strategic studies to some ways of minimising the risks of failure in an age when war is increasingly characterised by racial, cultural and religious conflict.

This unique work challenges the assumption that dictionaries act as objective records of our language, and instead argues that the English dictionary is a fundamentally ethnocentric work. Using theoretical, historical and empirical analyses, Phil Benson shows how English dictionaries have filtered knowledge through predominantly Anglo-American perspectives. The book includes a major case study of the most recent edition of the Oxford English Dictionary and its treatment of China.

The history and context of study -- The concept of ethnocentrism -- The causes of ethnocentrism : fear and self-aggrandisement -- The causes of ethnocentrism : social factors, biology, and evolution -- The consequences of ethnocentrism -- Integrating the causes and the consequences -- Ethnocentrism in psychology

Ethnocentrism in Its Many Guises gathers essays on a topic of urgent concern. Marjorie Snipes's introduction chronicles the treatment of ethnocentrism within the discipline of anthropology. Christine Kovic decries the ethnocentrism codified in immigration law that has led to thousands of deaths at the US-Mexico border. Brandon Lundy's and Kezia Darkwah's ethnographic research among labor migrants in Cabo Verde demonstrates how communities undergoing immigration pressures react to outsiders in complex ways. Yeju Choi contends that Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission failed to heal the wounds inflicted by a century of cultural genocide because the process did not fully engage and respect the worldview of Aboriginal peoples. Using the example of Rapa Nui, Kathleen and Daniel Ingersoll note how we project and privilege our own values when we observe other cultures and historical periods. Ayla Samli argues that both the nutritionally deficient Standard American Diet and our federal supplemental nutrition programs are limited and ethnocentric. Michael Blum explains how the Wu-Tang Clan's music can be understood as a site of resistance against American racism. These papers were presented at the 2017 annual meeting of the Southern Anthropological Society (SAS) in Carrollton, Georgia.

Ethnocentrism works to reinvigorate the study of ethnocentrism by reconceptualising ethnocentrism as a social, psychological, and attitudinal construct. Using a broad, multidisciplinary approach to ethnocentrism, the book integrates literature from disciplines such as psychology, political science, sociology, anthropology, biology, and marketing studies to create a novel reorganisation of the existing literature, its origins, and its outcomes. Empirical research throughout serves to comprehensively measure the six dimensions of ethnocentrism—devotion, group cohesion, preference, superiority, purity, and exploitativeness—and show how they factor into causes and consequences of ethnocentrism, including personality, values, morality, demographics, political ideology, social factors, prejudice, discrimination, and nationalism. Ethnocentrism is fascinating reading for scholars, researchers, and students in psychology, sociology, and political science.