The Tyranny of Identity is both a personal and highly interdisciplinary examination of the wide range of factors and disciplines at play in the formation of identity. It takes a novel and unique approach to this through use of metaphor, images, poetry and a wide range of academic sources to provide a holistic approach to the study of identity. This book uses the concept of Babushka dolls to show that we all have a series of activities during our lives that reside in our mind, body, spirit – each influencing the multiple identities we knowingly or unknowingly possess. This collage of factors and forces allow us to create an identity. The layers of identity unfold as the chapters progress and in doing so the book addresses the manifold ways in which identity intersects with nationhood, politics, education, the culture wars, family, religion, gender and contemporary institutions. The Tyranny of Identity is a wide-ranging, cross-cultural book that integrates and explores how the issue of identity has become a central issue in every academic discipline. This book is essential reading to all students studying identity and all readers seeking a deeper understanding of this complex topic.

The Tyranny of Identity is both a personal and highly interdisciplinary examination of the wide range of factors and disciplines at play in the formation of identity. It takes a novel and unique approach to this through use of metaphor, images, poetry and a wide range of academic sources to provide a holistic approach to the study of identity. This book uses the concept of Babushka dolls to show that we all have a series of activities during our lives that reside in our mind, body, spirit – each influencing the multiple identities we knowingly or unknowingly possess. This collage of factors and forces allow us to create an identity. The layers of identity unfold as the chapters progress and in doing so the book addresses the manifold ways in which identity intersects with nationhood, politics, education, the culture wars, family, religion, gender and contemporary institutions. The Tyranny of Identity is a wide-ranging, cross-cultural book that integrates and explores how the issue of identity has become a central issue in every academic discipline. This book is essential reading to all students studying identity and all readers seeking a deeper understanding of this complex topic.

The framework of these short volumes introduces the reader to the specific focus of each book. The accompanying poems and images offer an aesthetic and emotional experience. In this volume Professor Pietroni explores the poetry of economics and politics using the metaphor of the Greek god Atlas, who carries Earth on his shoulders as punishment for being unhospitable to Perseus. In developing this metaphor, Pietroni stresses the need to introduce and understand the gods and goddesses of compassion.

Compassion, a middle-English derivation from the Latin compati (to suffer with), has in our confusing and tumultuous times become a major academic discipline. Professor Patrick Pietroni brings together his work as the director of the Darwin International Institute for the Study of Compassion and his love of poetry to outline how the concept of compassion can emerge as a force for good in our conflicted world. When examining compassion from a religious perspective, one finds that all of the major world religions and humanistic organizations find compassion among the highest human virtues, and that they describe this aspect of the human species in remarkably similar ways, which we now recognize throughout the world as the Golden Rule. This slender volume offers the reader a poetic entrance into or reintroduction to the recognition and practice of compassion on all levels: to humans, to the largest or smallest of the animal kingdom, and to our beloved Earth. The poets collected here include Warsan Shire, William Wordsworth, Mary Oliver, Stanley Cooper, and Maya Angelou, among others.

The framework of these short volumes introduces the reader to the specific focus of each book. The accompanying poems and images offer an aesthetic and emotional experience. This final volume in Professor Pietroni's impressive collection explores the concept of leadership. In developing its theme, the book introduces the myth of the great leader and details the attributes of the compassionate leader.

The framework of these short volumes introduces the reader to the specific focus of the book. The accompanying poems and images offer an aesthetic and emotional experience. This eighth volume by Professor Pietroni focuses on why the concept of compassion is so important in our health-care system and what can be done to restore its centrality in the doctor/patient encounter.