Books by John Lie

Contends that ideas of race, ethnicity, and nationality can be subsumed under the rubric of "peoplehood." Far from being transhistorical and transcultural phenomena, race, ethnicity, and nation, the author argues, are modern notions - modernity here associated with the rise of the modern state, the industrial economy, and Enlightenment ideas.

Race, ethnicity, and nation, Lie argues, are modern notions, associated with the rise of the modern state, the industrial economy, and Enlightenment ideas. The state is responsible for the development and nurturing of feelings of belonging associated with ethnic, racial, and national identity; but also for racial and ethnic conflict, even genocide.

Multiethnic Japan challenges the received view of Japanese society as ethnically homogeneous. Employing a wide array of arguments and evidence--historical and comparative, interviews and observations, high literature and popular culture--John Lie recasts modern Japan as a thoroughly multiethnic society.