If the history of the twentieth century can be seen as the successful struggle to expand personal freedoms, then the challenge of the twenty-first century will be to assert cultural, ethnic, or religious identities. That struggle has never been more important than now.

Who is better prepared to confront challenges and defend principles in a volatile modern world, those with strong national, religious, ethnic, or tribal identities who accept democracy or democrats who renounce identity as a kind of divisive prejudice?

Building on his personal experience as a dissident, Natan Sharansky argues that valueless cosmopolitanism and postmodern relativism is dangerous, even in democracies. Together, identity and democracy can assert a powerful and benign sense of purpose; but divided, at odds with each other, they invite fundamentalism and rootlessness.