From the best-selling author of Cosmopolitanism comes this revealing exploration of how the collective identities that shape our polarized world are riddled with contradiction.

We often think identity is personal. But the identities that shape the world, our struggles, and our hopes, are social ones, shared with countless others. Our sense of self is shaped by our family, but also by affiliations that spread out from there, like our nationality, culture, class, race and religion. Taking these broad categories as a starting point, Professor Appiah challenges our assumptions about how identity works. In eloquent and lively chapters, he weaves personal anecdote with historical, cultural and literary example to explore the entanglements within the stories we tell ourselves. We all know there are conflicts among identities; but Professor Appiah explores how identities are created by conflict. Identities are then crafted from confusions - confusions this book aims to help us sort through. Religion, Appiah shows us, isn't primarily about beliefs. The idea of national self-determination is incoherent. Our everyday racial thinking is an artefact of discarded science. Class is not a matter of upper and lower. And the very idea of Western culture is a misleading myth. We will see our situation more clearly if we start to question these mistaken identities. This is radical new thinking from a master in the subject and will change forever the way we think about ourselves and our communities.

"Appiah believes we're in wars of identity because we keep making the same mistake: exaggerating our differences with others and our similarities with our own kind... [his] writing is often fresh, even beautiful... We need more thinkers as wise as Appiah." - New York Times Book Review

"Appiah's essays are exquisitely and painstakingly argued." - Washington Post Book World

"The Lies That Bind ranges even more widely in time and space than [Francis Fukuyama's] Identity... The point of this entertaining, meandering journey is that identities are less solid than is frequently thought." - Economist

"The Lies That Bind is a wise and erudite introduction to this most vexed of subjects." - Irish Times

"Excellent... Appiah hopes to inspire a rethinking of our restrictive and therefore divisive notions of who we are. But if that seems an impossible task, should the massive obstacles stop us from trying? [Appiah] brings to the task a number of insights and the mind of a realist... if the solution to the fracturing of our world remains elusive, this book at least helps us think clearly about the problem." - The Washington Post

"If you are going to read only one book on identity this year, Appiah's is the one" - The Guardian

"A topical study, particularly given today's societal divisions in the US and UK." - The Tablet