"In just a few years, diversity has become America's most visible cultural ideal. Corporations alter their recruitment and hiring policies in the name of a diverse workforce. Universities institute new admissions procedures in the name of a diverse student body. Presidents choose their major appointees in the name of a diverse cabinet.

And what diversity proponents have in mind, Peter Wood argues, is not the dictionary meaning of the word - variety and multiplicity - but a new and often narrow kind of conformity." "Whether as prescribed numerial outcome or as the celebration of cultural difference, diversity, according to Wood, is now a deadening force in American life, a cliche that promotes group stereotypes and undermines any real diversity of ideas and individuals.".

"In this learned and entertaining book, Wood has undertaken nothing less than the biography of a concept. Drawing on classic texts of history and anthropology, science and religion, he shows that - contrary to the self-flattering assumptions of our time - Americans of earlier eras often met diversty open-mindedly, with a combination of awe, delight and curiosity."--BOOK JACKET.