Culture and Human Development: The Selected Papers of John Whiting Book

Definitely one of my personal top 100 books, and I think one of the most important books of the decade. Natan Sharansky alerts us to the urgency of a strong national identity for survival. Without this, we will be absorbed by an agency with stronger identity.
For example, the eruption of political Islam around the world succeeds to the extent that it is advancing a strong sense of identity. This aggressive assurance easily overcomes Western equivocation, despite otherwise superior wealth and arms.
A fact I learned recently that reinforces Sharansky on the point of successive resistance to political Islam is the story put forth in PEPIN'S BASTARD: THE STORY OF CHARLES MARTEL. The ruling class of Europe was ready to make terms with the army of the Umayyad Caliphate. Much like the Biblical bastard Jephthah (Judges 11), the invasion was resisted by the bastard son of Pepin de Gros.
Sharansky first learned the primacy of a sense of identity to survival as a prisoner in Russia under interrogation. He disappointed himself when he failed to withstand the intimidation. As a well-educated young man, he expected more of himself. He puzzled over the inner resilience of commoners who held up under the same pressures. This was his introduction to identity, and his turn from secular rationalism to his Jewish roots.
Following two world wars, the world perceived nationalism as a root cause. Sharansky advocates the opposite -- healthy nationalism in a free world community.