Description
Book SynopsisIdentity: The Necessity of a Modern Idea is the first comprehensive history of identity as the answer to the question, who, or what, am I? It covers the century from the end of World War I, when identity in this sense first became an issue for writers and philosophers, to 2010, when European political leaders declared multiculturalism a failure just as Canada, which pioneered it, was hailing its success. Along the way the book examines Erik Erikson's concepts of psychological identity and identity crisis, which made the word famous; the turn to collective identity and the rise of identity politics in Europe and America; varieties and theories of group identity; debates over accommodating collective identities within liberal democracy; the relationship between individual and group identity; the postmodern critique of identity as a concept; and the ways it nonetheless transformed the social sciences and altered our ideas of ethics. At the same time the book is an argument for the valid
Trade Review"A remarkable work: intellectually challenging and engaging, wide-ranging and deeply thought-through, marked by incisive analysis and luminous insights. This distinguished and important book should be of interest to people in a wide variety of fields-intellectual history (European and American), cultural studies, sociology, psychology, and philosophy." * Jerrold Seigel, author of
The Idea of the Self: Thought and Experience in Europe Since the Seventeenth Century *
"There are not many people alive today who could produce a book like this one, which calls on a vast range of learning that can only be acquired over a lifetime of reading and scholarly reflection. It is sweeping in its scope and steeped in erudition. Gerald Izenberg is a masterful explicator of difficult authors and texts." * Darrin McMahon, author of
Divine Fury: A History of Genius *
Table of ContentsIntroduction. The New "Discourse" of Identity
Chapter 1. Identity Becomes an Issue: European Literature Between the World Wars
Chapter 2. The Ontological Critique of Identity: Heidegger and Sartre
Chapter 3. Identity Becomes a Word: Erik Erikson and Psychological Identity
Chapter 4. Social Identity and the Birth of Identity Politics, 1945-1970
Chapter 5. Collective Identities and Their Agendas, 1970-2000
Chapter 6. The Practical Politics of National and Multicultural Identity: Germany, France, Canada, and the United States, 1970-2010
Chapter 7. The Problem of Collective Identity in Liberal Democracy
Chapter 8. The Contradictions of Postmodern Identity
Chapter 9. Identity Transforms the Social Sciences
Chapter 10. The Kinds of Kinds: Explaining Collective Identity
Chapter 11. Identity as an Ethical Issue
Conclusion. The Necessity of Identity
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
