Tiger mother Chua, a Yale Law School professor specializing in ethnic conflict and globalization, argues that humans are instinctively tribal and that overlooking such group identification in favor of ideological rhetoric has led to numerous U.S. foreign policy disasters (think Sunnis and Shias in the Middle East and the hated Chinese-minority capitalists in Vietnam).

Legal scholar and author Chua (John M. Duff, Jr. Professor, Yale Law Sch.) follows up her popular and controversial The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother with a book that returns to the theme of her first two titles (World on Fire and Day of Empire): global political instability. Asking provocative questions about why groups form around particular ethnic identities or local needs, Chua begins with a discussion of American exceptionalism—and blindness to political "tribes" (which are never clearly defined)—and then moves on to test her framework in chapters on Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Venezuela. She rounds off with two chapters on North America, discussing inequality and the power of "political tribes" in a democratic system. Chua's inquiry is a potentially useful one in an era of violent, reactionary white nationalism. However, in keeping with her earlier work, she falls back on ethnocultural generalizations that do nothing to advance a deeper political understanding. Her notes indicate a heavy lean on current periodical literature. VERDICT This book will likely find readers familiar with Chua's previous work, but those seeking thoughtful sociopolitical analysis of nationalism and identity will need to look elsewhere. [See Prepub Alert, 8/28/17.]—Hanna Clutterbuck-Cook, Harvard Univ. Lib., Cambridge, MA

A Yale Law School professor with expertise in ethnic conflict and globalization, Chua (The Triple Package) devotes her thoughtful, if overreaching, survey to the role of tribalism in politics and society in and outside the U.S. She concentrates in the book's first half on how U.S. foreign policy, to its considerable detriment, has ignored the role of "political tribes," especially those involving a socioeconomically powerful "market-dominant minority," such as ethnic Chinese throughout Southeast Asia. Chua spends the second half looking at tribal politics in the U.S., especially "white-against-white" animosity, and touches on such little-known phenomena as the conspiracy-minded Sovereign Citizen movement, as well as the far more mainstream NASCAR culture. However, there is too little here on the vital role of religion in the formation and functioning of American political tribes. In an epilogue, Chua decries the tribalist tendency to polarize the world into "a virtuous us and a demonized them" but offers little to help Americans move beyond such views besides an appeal for more outreach and dialogue. Although the book ends weakly and too soon for the ground it attempts to cover, this is still a thought-provoking, illuminating study on a hugely important political and cultural issue. Agent: Tina Bennett, WME. (Feb.)