Kwame Anthony Appiah, a professor of philosophy and law, has the perfect credentials to challenge our assumptions about identity.

The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity
Kwame Anthony Appiah
(Profile books, 272 PP, £14.99)
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Kwame Anthony Appiah, a professor of philosophy and law, has the perfect credentials to challenge our assumptions about identity. His father was Ghanaian, his mother English; he was born in Wiltshire, but grew up in Ghana; his mother was an Anglican, while his father was a Methodist; Appiah now lives in New York and is married to another man.

In his latest book, inspired by his 2016 Reith Lectures “Mistaken identities”, Appiah covers creed, country, colour, class and culture, devoting a chapter to each theme. Identities are important, he asserts, because they “can give you a sense of how you fit into the social world … they give you reasons for doing things”. Essentialism, in particular, is problematic as a means of classification because there isn’t an “inner essence” that determines the ­
make-up of different social identities.

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