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Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (Issues of Our Time)
by Amartya K. Sen

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25409.Identity_and_Violence_The_Illusion_of_Destiny?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (Issues of Our Time)" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167712144m/25409.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25409.Identity_and_Violence_The_Illusion_of_Destiny?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/82531.Amartya_K_Sen">Amartya K. Sen</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8553550?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 2 of 5 stars<br/>The points that Sen makes in this book are valid and I agree with his basic thesis that people inhabit many different identities and to box people into identities solely based on religious ones fails to acknowledge the many different ways in which people see themselves.  This type of thinking contributes to the widespread "us vs. them" mentality that leads to greater violence and less understanding between people.  Sen's corrective to the widely prevalent "clash of civilizations" thesis is greatly needed and he shows how there are no pure civilizatons to begin with - all are hybrids.  This being said there were many times throughout the book that I felt I was reading a poor quality freshman seminar paper.  Sen tends to repeat the same things again and again even to the point of including almost verbatim sentences within the same paragraph.  I wondered how this book could have gotten published with such glaring sloppiness.  I kept waiting for the "articulate voice" that Kofi Annan's excerpt from the back mentioned and never found it.  If it is true as Annan wrote that "the world's poor and dispossessed could have no more articulate or insightful a champion" than in Sen, then the poor and dispossessed have a problem.
<br/>
<br/>I guess that if you win a Nobel Prize as Sen did in 1998 in Economics you then have a license to write a book on any subject and get it published.  Don't expect anything novel or earth shattering in this book.  Sen probably would have done better to have just provided the reader with a one page outline of his points, each followed by mention of the historical examples.  Instead he walks down a well trodden path and makes the reader wonder why he had to waste so much paper making such a simple and obvioius point.  On the other hand maybe that point needs to be repeated again and again because so few have been listening.  But for those who are already familiar with critiques on the "clash of civilizations" thesis, made famous by Samuel Huntington, move on to more worthwhile reading or write something yourself that will move beyond these well-worn tropes of discourse and actually say something new. 
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/588230?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Ryan's review
rating:

recommended for: those totally unfamiliar with any critique of the "clash of civilizations" thesis
status: Read in November, 2007

The points that Sen makes in this book are valid and I agree with his basic thesis that people inhabit many different identities and to box people into identities solely based on religious ones fails to acknowledge the many different ways in which people see themselves. This type of thinking contributes to the widespread "us vs. them" mentality that leads to greater violence and less understanding between people. Sen's corrective to the widely prevalent "clash of civilizations" thesis is greatly needed and he shows how there are no pure civilizatons to begin with - all are hybrids. This being said there were many times throughout the book that I felt I was reading a poor quality freshman seminar paper. Sen tends to repeat the same things again and again even to the point of including almost verbatim sentences within the same paragraph. I wondered how this book could have gotten published with such glaring sloppiness. I kept waiting for the "articulate voi...more The points that Sen makes in this book are valid and I agree with his basic thesis that people inhabit many different identities and to box people into identities solely based on religious ones fails to acknowledge the many different ways in which people see themselves. This type of thinking contributes to the widespread "us vs. them" mentality that leads to greater violence and less understanding between people. Sen's corrective to the widely prevalent "clash of civilizations" thesis is greatly needed and he shows how there are no pure civilizatons to begin with - all are hybrids. This being said there were many times throughout the book that I felt I was reading a poor quality freshman seminar paper. Sen tends to repeat the same things again and again even to the point of including almost verbatim sentences within the same paragraph. I wondered how this book could have gotten published with such glaring sloppiness. I kept waiting for the "articulate voice" that Kofi Annan's excerpt from the back mentioned and never found it. If it is true as Annan wrote that "the world's poor and dispossessed could have no more articulate or insightful a champion" than in Sen, then the poor and dispossessed have a problem.

I guess that if you win a Nobel Prize as Sen did in 1998 in Economics you then have a license to write a book on any subject and get it published. Don't expect anything novel or earth shattering in this book. Sen probably would have done better to have just provided the reader with a one page outline of his points, each followed by mention of the historical examples. Instead he walks down a well trodden path and makes the reader wonder why he had to waste so much paper making such a simple and obvioius point. On the other hand maybe that point needs to be repeated again and again because so few have been listening. But for those who are already familiar with critiques on the "clash of civilizations" thesis, made famous by Samuel Huntington, move on to more worthwhile reading or write something yourself that will move beyond these well-worn tropes of discourse and actually say something new. ...less

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