Focusing on racial, ethnic, and religious groups, the author proposes a historical overview of group life and its impact on American society. His objectives and arguments are multiple. Covering a period from precolonial days to the present, he discusses the dynamics of group identity as well as the dynamics of intragroup and intergroup relations. The underlying theme is: All groups have at one time endured discrimination in American society. But, the trend in the United States historically has been toward guaranteeing and protecting individual rights. The author concludes that over the past few decades, however, the trend has shifted. Since the civil rights movement, the course has been toward government promotion of group rights over individual rights. He argues that this promotion of group rights has been chipping away at traditional individual rights. The impact of these preferences-specifically affirmative action programs-has been to create competition and antagonism among groups. Concerned with how to preserve national unity in the wake of this increasing animosity, Perlmutter concludes with ominous observations for America's future if the current trend of the government promoting group rights continues.

"Though America had been rightfully portrayed as born of democratic principles, to no less an extent was it born of undemocratic ones. America is thus a living contradiction of many dimensions -- historical, sociological, and psychological -- that have manifested themselves at every level of society -- individual, communal, and natural".

So writes Philip Perlmutter, whose Legacy of Hate explores this "living contradiction" by tracing the development of American minority group relations, beginning with the arrival of white Europeans and moving through the eighteenth and industrially expanding nineteenth centuries; the explosion of immigration and its attendant problems in the twentieth century; and a final chapter exploring how prejudice (racial, religious, and ethnic) has been institutionalized in the educational systems and laws.

Throughout this provocative book, Perlmutter focuses on where and why various groups encountered prejudice and discrimination and how their experiences have shaped the society we live in and how we think about one another.