Table of Contents

Introduction. 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

Promotional Information

Identity: The Necessity of a Modern Idea is the first comprehensive history of the concept that answers the question, "who, or what, am I?" Gerald Izenberg contends that our most important identities, while historically conditioned, are rooted in permanent categories of human existence, such as sexuality, sociality, and labor.

About the Author

Gerald Izenberg is Professor Emeritus of History, Washington University in St. Louis, and author of Impossible Individuality: Romanticism, Revolution, and the Origins of Modern Selfhood, 1787-1802.

Reviews

"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*