Remaking Identities

For centuries conquerors, missionaries, and political movements acting in the name of a single god, nation, or race have sought to remake human identities. Tracing the rise of exclusive forms of identity over the past 1500 years, this innovative book explores both the creation and destruction of exclusive identities. Benjamin Lieberman focuses on two critical phases of world history: the age of holy war and conversion, and the age of nationalism and racism. He convincingly shows that efforts to transplant and expand new identities have paradoxically generated long periods of both stability and explosive violence that remade the human landscape around the world.

Benjamin Lieberman is Professor of History at Fitchburg State University, Massachusetts, USA. His research interests include ethnic cleansing and genocide. He is the author of Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing and the Making of Modern Europe (2006).

Introduction Chapter 1: Building the Realm of Islam Chapter 2: Word and Sword in the Making of Christian Europe Chapter 3: Spain and Catholic Empire in the New World Chapter 4: Islam in India Chapter 5: Settler Society and Populist Imperialism Chapter 6: Nationalizing States and Traitor Peoples in the Shatterzone of Empires Chapter 7: The Contradictions of Racial Empire Conclusion