Identity and Intolerance is an effort to shift the focus toward comparison in order to show how German and American societies have historically confronted and currently confront matters of national, racial, and ethnic inclusion and exclusion. The comparative perspective sheds light on the specific links between the cultural construction of nationhood and otherness, the political modes of integration and exclusion, and the social conditions of tolerance and intolerance.

The contributors to this book also attempt to integrate the largely separate approaches offered by the history of ideas and ideologies, social history, and discourse theory.