A comprehensive exploration of all the issues that shape our search for a multicultural society. (Libris)

Gerd Baumann was with Research Centre Religion & Society of The University of Amsterdam at the writing of this book. Baumann describes multiculturalism as a riddle attempting to achieve justice and equality between three traditionally-defined cultural identities: national, ethnic, religious. He proposes that the terms of the riddle must be redefined before progress can be made. The concrete study of this book is set in North American and Europe.

Baumann sets for the contributions and limitations of pursuing human rights, national rights, ethnic rights, and religious rights. He theorizes that all identities are identifications, that is, they are a creative process and not absolutes. Identifications are dialogical. Multiculturalism must be, above all, practical. As a footnote, he suggests his current thinking on a formulation “for a multicultural future on the basis of multirelational thinking (141).