Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • The Identity Trap

  • A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time
  • By: Yascha Mounk
  • Narrated by: JD Jackson
  • Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (44 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Identity Trap

By: Yascha Mounk
Narrated by: JD Jackson
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

The origins, consequences and limitations of an ideology that has quickly become highly influential around the world.

For much of their history, societies have violently oppressed ethnic, religious and sexual minorities. It is no surprise then that many who passionately believe in social justice have come to believe that members of marginalized groups need to take pride in their identity if they are to resist injustice.

But over the past decades, a healthy appreciation for the culture and heritage of minorities has transformed into an obsession with group identity in all its forms. A new ideology - which Yascha Mounk terms the 'identity synthesis' - seeks to put each citizen's matrix of identities at the heart of social, cultural and political life. This, he argues, is The Identity Trap.

Mounk traces the intellectual origin of these ideas. He tells the story of how they were able to win tremendous power over the past decade. And he makes a nuanced case why their application to areas from education to public policy is proving to be deeply counterproductive. In his passionate plea for universalism and humanism, he argues that the proponents of identitarian ideas will, though they may be full of good intentions, make it harder to achieve progress towards genuine equality.

©2023 Yascha Mounk (P)2023 Penguin Audio
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Social Justice Fallacies cover art
Tough Crowd cover art
Israelophobia cover art
The Madness of Crowds cover art
America's Cultural Revolution cover art
The Origins of Woke cover art
The Plot to Change America cover art
Lost in Trans Nation cover art
How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement cover art
The New Puritans cover art
Cynical Theories cover art
Identity cover art
Race Marxism cover art
To Shape a New World cover art
Return of the Strong Gods cover art
Why Nationalism cover art

Critic reviews

A powerful, timely book, seeking to understand the origins and impact of the ideas that rightly or wrongly constitute "identity politics" - where they come from, what effect they have, where they could lead. His book is both an excellent analysis and an eloquent plea for the recovery of shared values, the ideas that link us instead of dividing us (Anne Applebaum)
In The Identity Trap, Yascha Mounk explains how a few powerfully bad ideas, propelled through institutions by people with good intentions, are causing systemic dysfunction and dangerous polarization. This is among the most insightful and important books written in the last decade on American democracy and its current torments, because it also shows us a way out of the trap (Jonathan Haidt)
In his indispensable book, Yascha Mounk proposes an alternative to the ceaseless combat between "woke" and "anti-woke" extremes -- one that takes seriously the enduring malignant legacy of systemic discrimination, yet correctly identifies that universal values, not group solidarity, offer the surest path to justice, fairness, and enduring social peace. The Identity Trap is necessary reading (David French)

What listeners say about The Identity Trap

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    32
  • 4 Stars
    8
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    22
  • 4 Stars
    8
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    32
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Essential reading.

Essential reading for those who are frustrated to see the consequences of the postmodern turn in the left in relation to its preoccupation with identity particularism and the rejection of universal human rights and universal reason in the US and UK, in particular. It provides an illuminating and long overdue explanation of that the reactionism of the internet cultures, combined with the popular adoption of postmodern critical theory has stymied challenging real-world concerns and issues relating to social injustice.

Mounk has argued that instead of providing a better society in which different groups mutually understand each other, the "identity synthesis" (identity politics) has only serves to entrench identity divides because its postmodern intellectuals believe that people from different identities can't hope to ever understand one another, Mounk provides a compelling argument to reject the identity synthesis because of the damage this has done to public discussion/debate and the ineffectiveness that it has in creating solutions.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Devastating critique of woke ideology

An excellent, easily digestible and thoroughly required critique of what is an increasingly poisonous ideology sweeping the west

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

useful and hopeful

An excellent book. Both hopeful and positive and offers a way to break free from the false and forced choices of the identity synthesis.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A powerful and convincing exposition, undermined by poor narration

This is a very well written, reasoned and structured explanation of how the recent trend towards identity politics came into being and escaped college campuses and entered the “real world”. The first half with its historical / cultural focus was particularly powerful.

I found the arguments convincing but in places overstated. The extent to which the issues described affect my own country (UK) simply don’t compare to my lived experience. I also found the final section on how to resist the identity trap to be applicable to any form of authoritarianism rather than this particular one.

I’d highly recommend reading the book - just avoid the Audible narration which was pretty poor. The intonation throughout was frankly bizarre and it sounded a few too many tobacco products have been consumed down the years

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A sensible analysis of identity politics

Yascha Mounk makes a thorough, carefully considered—yet duly considerate—analysis of the recent phenomenon of identity politics, its roots and allure, and above all, its very real dangers. My concern is that the people who most need to heed this book's lessons, on both extremes of the political spectrum, might be put off by its rational, moderate and nuanced treatment of a subject that's usually understood only in simplistic and polarized terms; this comprehensive work goes firmly against that trend.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Far more even-handed than I expected

I was promoted by the Guardian review to expect this to be a bit of a “PC gone mad” type of book, but it wasn’t. No straw men basically which I appreciated. Thoughtful book. Would recommend.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Intellectually engaging

Mounk offers a liberal retort to Wokeism, an intellectual history of Woke and a guide to hos to challenge this authoritarian ideology in the future. Highly recommend, even if you’ve read the likes of McWhorter, Doyle, Lindsay, etc

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

An excellent book

Incredibly interesting. Well written and well argued. Best non-fiction book I’ve read this year.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great book, not crazy about the reader

The book is thought provoking and makes a lot of concessions to left wing ideas while pointing out the serious ethical and intellectual flaws in what might be called woke ideology. I found the summaries at the end of each chapter very helpful. The author sets himself up as a public intellectual and I think has serious credentials to justify this.

I didn’t like the reader. His voice and accentuations grated me. And while his reading is generally competent sometimes he gets the emphasis and pronunciation wrong. I say this only in the interests of feedback to Audible. This needn’t prevent you from listening.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

More info about the dangers of Woke

Very heavy going. Boring narrator. Some questionable statements such as 'blacks having more chance of being gunned down by cops', when we know more whites than blacks are killed by American cops. So there.
Ok overall, though would've used my credit elsewhere to be honest.
Good or bad then?
Mmmm, informative, but BORING.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!