Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations

Humans are tribal. We need to belong to groups. In many parts of the world, the group identities that matter most – the ones that people will kill and die for – are ethnic, religious, sectarian, or clan-based. And yet, to disastrous effect, Washington's foreign policy establishment has been blind to the power of tribal politics outside the country, just as political elites have been oblivious to the group identities that matter most to ordinary Americans - and that are now tearing the United States apart. In Political Tribes, bestselling author and Yale Law School professor Amy Chua argues that if we want to get our foreign policy right and stop fighting unwinnable wars, the United States has to come to grips with tribalism abroad, even as it contends with rediscovering a national identity that transcends tribal politics at home.