Throughout the world, certain ethnic groups have made a living through trade and have found a place for themselves in their societies' middle strata. At times, these 'middlemen minorities' have aroused the envy of their neighbors and been subjected to a variety of persecutions. In this book, Walter P. Zenner examines explanations for this phenomenon and analyzes such groups as the Jews, the Chinese, the Scots, and the South Asians abroad.

Walter P. Zenner is Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Albany. He is the author of Persistence and Flexibility: Anthropological Perspectives on the American Jewish Experience, also published by SUNY Press