Killing in the Name of Identity

“Why do they hate us so?” Vamik Volkan has the most compelling, humane, and universal response to the riddle of our time. In this extraordinary and timely book, Volkan explains better than anyone the relationship between large-group identities and massive traumas and current events and ongoing conflicts around the world, including those related to the horrific attacks of 9/11. In Killing in the Name of Identity, Volkan has taken us further, and deeper, into the dark and vulnerable collective mind of ethnic, religious, cultural, and national group conflict. Through his eyes and words, we find ourselves looking into and making contact with the universal elements present in humanity and in ourselves, which converge in producing the conditions for great human tragedies. No one understands nor writes about large-group terror and violence in a more compassionate and profoundly instructive way.

Vamik Volkan is an emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia. He is the author of numerous books, including The Need to have Enemies and Allies, Bloodlines, and Blind Trust. He is widely recognized as the world's leading authority on the application of psychodynamic theory to ethnic and sectarian conflict.