by Amin Maalouf
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Product Description
In this cogent and persuasive examination of identity in the modern world, Amin Maalouf moves across the world's history, faiths, and politics, outlining the way the notion of a singular identity-personal, religious, ethnic, or national-can give rise to heated passions and even massive crimes. Although written before the events of September 11, the essence of Maalouf's rumination couldn't be more relevant.
Amazon.com Review
In the Name of Identity is as close to summer reading as philosophy gets. It is a personal, sometimes even intimate, account of identity-in-the-world, not a treatise on the thorny metaphysics of identity. A novelist by trade, Amin Maalouf is a fluid writer, and he is aided by Barbara Bray's award-winning translation. His aim is to illuminate the roots of violence and hatred, which he sees in tribalistic forms of identity. He argues that our convictions and notions of identity--whether cultural, religious, national, or ethnic--are socially habituated and frequently dangerous. We'd give them up, he argues, if we thought more closely about them. Though the book has been heralded as radical and surprising, Maalouf essentially espouses an Enlightenment sensibility, a faith in the brotherhood of man. He is a believer in progress, arguing that "the wind of globalisation, while it could lead us to disaster, could also lead us to success." In fact, he envisions a globalized world in which our local identities are subordinated to a broader "allegiance to the human community itself." Maalouf wants us to retain our distinctiveness, but he wants it subsumed under the nave of common understanding. --Eric de Place
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Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 extremely important, 2008-04-23
Maalouf's point on globalization is that it can be (should be?) seen mainly as an extension of modernity. Modernity, in turn, can be (should be?) seen as a project, originating in Europe, that is as yet incomplete and in many cases self-serving for those who have taken "the white man's burden" upon themselves. Modernity brought with it -- through colonialism, conceptions of nature and culture, Science with a capital S, etc -- new modes of identity that were/are intimately tied to power relations. Modernity, in this sense, is a collection of carefully contained contradictions. For example: liberty and justice for SOME, rather than the purported ALL. The point of identity and modernity, as the two converge here, is that through these contradictions many have been forced to reduce themselves to one identity, rather than accepting our inherent complexities. One of the more macrosocial consequences of this has been nationalism, coterminous with the relatively recent ("modern") rise of the nation-state; this has, in contrast, engendered (reactionary?) religious identity amongst those from whom modernity has been denied. The thing with the "modern" is that one cannot define it without simultaneously defining the "traditional" -- and thus, both are invented at the same time.
Maalouf's point is that embracing our complexities is the first step in a more global view of humanity and thus embracing universal human rights. Globalization could be (should be?) a vehicle towards this achievement, but only as long as we are willing to discontinue the provincializing of ourselves through out-dated and violent conceptions of nation, religion, citizenship, etc. Embracing our complex loyalties and identity is the first step in establishing our common grounds as humans.
In the Name of Identity is a very candid and provocative text from an author produced (vertically) by a colonial/postcolonial environment and (horizontally) by a global community that chooses to embrace the positive aspects of modernity and the Enlightenment project.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
insightful, 2007-05-31
his arguements make sense!
and contrary to what some of the tags say, this is not fiction....
we are all human.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Lucid reading, 2006-12-02
A very beautiful, timely and lucid reading on a complex idea. Amin Maalouf has the mastery of writing in easy words on tough ideas. Identity shapes every man and woman, and how he/she develops his/her identity is traced in this book. How this identity then dictates his/her future dealings and treatments and his/her position in a given society is also subject of this book. History also plays a very important role in shaping one's identity. In this world and time of constant clashes of ideas and societies and may be 'civilizations' knowing one's identity is very important. Even if one does not classify oneself to a particular identity, his skin/color/language/accent/nationality/religion puts him into a slot most undesireable to him. This compartmentalization of men according to his identity is a reality now. Thats why its important to deconstruct the concept of identity. Maalouf has excellently dealt with this abstract construct.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 great ideas, slow read, 2006-11-04
I'm reading this book for a class so I might be slightly biased, I love discussing the book in class because we get to talk about his great ideas, but reading it on my own is slow-going and not enjoyable. Parts of it go by easily but with all the mentions of conflicts around the world part of it just seem too much like a history lesson.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 Thoughtful, insightful, nonacademic look at the major political problem of our day, 2006-01-13
This brief, articulate book provides insights into the politics of identity--by one who has seen quite a bit of it up close--and some suggestions for easing the friction of conflicting groups.
Maalouf's book is not intended to be definitive or exhaustive. Rather, he offers insights into the nature of identity--what is it? how does it manifest itself?--based on his own observations, using a few telling examples. His central point is that the individual identity of each of us is exactly the sum of all the group identities that we possess, this sum being unique for each individual. I'm an adult male British Columbian of (partly) Latvian descent, an English-speaker, a chess-player, and so on. Each of those characteristics I share with others. The sum of them all I hold alone.
Maalouf makes the point that identity is not really an issue until we feel it is threatened. If the French-speakers in an English-speaking society feel that they are being discriminated against due to their language, suddenly that language becomes the most important thing about them, and voila the politics of identity is born. Calming identity conflicts will mean making people, especially minorities, feel included.
Maalouf's book is conversational rather than rigorous--the type of thing you could hear from an intelligent, well-spoken friend opening up on a topic he has given considerable thought. There is no bibliography, no footnotes; but there are little asides and direct addresses to the reader.
Maalouf offers no panaceas. His most important suggestion is that each of us learn to accept our own diversity, and not give in to the temptation or pressure to identify with only one aspect of our identity.
On the social and political level, Maalouf's suggestions seemed a bit weaker to me. His suggestion that we, the world, should exert ourselves to preserve every single living culture and language from extinction, in the same way we would exert ourselves to preserve animal species, while understandable, struck me as being quixotic and even a bit paternalistic. The world becomes a living museum of quaint cultures and languages.
All of Maalouf's thoughts, though, are carefully considered, mature, nonpolemical, and respectful of his fellow human beings, wheresoever they are. In that way, he is an exemplary citizen of planet earth. Put another way: if everyone thought and felt as Amin Maalouf thinks and feels, there would be no terrorism, no genocide, and no racism. He is setting out the attitudes we will all need to adopt in order to put an end to those things.
If you want to listen to the considered thoughts of a sane neighbor on an important topic, read this book.
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