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A thoughtful exposition on the clash engendered by modern ideas of nationhood between a person's many identities and allegiances. He argues for a new approach that doesn't box people into exclusive, singular identity based either on nationality, or ethnicity, or language, which, according to him, is the main source of so much violence of the last century.

The argument is that in the age of globalisation it is no longer tenable to have homogeneous countries with single or dominant ethnicity, language or even culture. Therefore, there is a need to accommodate a person's many different identities for the sake of tolerance and peace. Maalouf gives his own example. He's Lebanese, native Arabic speaker, a Christian and a French national. He asks if he's not French because he has Arab origins? Is he not Arab because he's a Christian? Arabic in his mother tongue yet he writes in French and drinks France's water. Who is to deny him what part of his identity to fit him 'properly' into one country?

A very useful read and in a way an eye-opener for the Western societies that still seem to be hanging on to the pre-World War II conception of nationhood. Maalouf argues that our failure to adjust ourselves to new realities will end up in lots of unrest and bloodshed. Two decades onwards, we're seeing his prescient analysis beginning to come true in the European countries where leaders increasingly taking on the view that multiculturalism and diversity have 'failed'. If Maalouf were to hear this, he might have said, "it is not diversity that has failed; it's you who have failed your vision of the future.'