Making Enemies

Whom a prime minister or president will not shake hands with is still more noticed than with whom they will. Public identity can afford to be ambiguous about friends, but not about enemies. Barker examines the accounts of how enmity functions in the cultivation of identity, how essential or avoidable it is, and what the global consequences are.

RODNEY BARKER is Professor of Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Gresham Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College. He broadcasts frequently, and has been opera critic of Tribune. Recent publications include Legitimating Identities: The Self-presentations of Rulers and Subjects and Political Ideas in Modern Britain In and After the Twentieth Century.