Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 July 2003
Xenophobic nationalism and ethnic conflict have been major features of modern times. As Daniel Chirot rightly points out about Jews in Europe and Chinese in South-East Asia in his introduction, “information about these two successful but often persecuted minorities offers insights about the very formation of ethnic and nationalist identities, and clues about when such a process is more or less likely to lead to either violent social separation and conflict or peaceful accommodation” (p. 3).