Troubled and troublesome

Every stroll in the Eastern Mediterranean lands means walking in the presence of some historic reference. Transformed into politics and national ideologies, history has long been a tool of identity building. When looking at identity politics, these days may we squirm over the rise of new, presumably white identity politics in the United States or how questions of national identity have in recent years been shaping politics in the European sphere, as epitomized in the Brexit vote. In discourses of academic belief systems around the developed world in the 21st century, one might moreover deride identities as constructs of colonial-nationalistic Europe in the 19th century, or oppose identity concepts on contemporary intellectual grounds. But to escape from identity-driven views will likely be harder in Middle Eastern societies than in any European or American ivory tower.  With that in mind, Executive looks at two books with implications for national identities in