In the Name of Identity Violence and the Need to Belong.

A thoughtful inquiry into our concept of identity and its impact on society. The author considers how we define ourselves, how identity is understood in the world's different cultures, and how recognizing identity is key to survival in the new millennium.Identity--what makes each of us unique--has been a fundamental question of philosophers from Socrates to Freud. Identity is the crucible out of which we come: our background, our race, our gender, our tribal affiliations, our religion (or lack thereof), all go into making up who we are. All too often, however, the notion of identity--personal, religious, ethnic, or national--has given rise to heated passions and even massive crimes.