"Industrialization and Assimilation is among the first books to focus on the process of ethnic identity change in a broad context. Green's evidence causally explains how and why ethnicity changes across time, showing that, by altering the basis of economic production from land to labor and removing people from the "idiocy of rural life," industrialization is a powerful agent for making societies more ethnically homogenous. More specifically, the author argues that industrialization lowers the relative value of rural land, leading people to identify less with narrow rural identities in favor of broader identities that can aid them navigate the formal urban economy. Using case studies ranging from mid-20th century Turkey to contemporary Botswana, Somalia, and Uganda, as well as examples of Native Americans in the United States and the Måaori in New Zealand, both quantitative and qualitative methods are used to establish the relationship between industrialization and ethnic homogenization"--

Elliott D. Green is Associate Professor of Development Studies in the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics. His research focusses on the origins of ethnic and national identification and the political economy of development, with a regional focus on Sub-Saharan Africa.

1. Introduction; 2. Understanding ethnicity and industrialization; 3. Industrialization and assimilation in historical perspective; 4. Cross-national evidence; 5. Industrialization and assimilation in mid-20th century Turkey; 6. Cases of non-industrialization in Africa: Somalia and Uganda; 7. 'Cattle without legs': structural transformation in Botswana; 8. Ethic change among Native Americans in the United States; 9. Ethnic change among the M¿ori in New Zealand; 10. Conclusion.