The stories told about societies misrepresent ontology in a number of ways, including the way their logic runs backwards from the present to prehistory, the way they assume state boundaries represent societal boundaries, and the way they impute coherence and self-motivation to whole "nations" or "communities." Tilly (social science, Columbia U.) examines the way that stories about social identity become interventions in collective conversations. He presents edited versions of 12 previously published essays that look that look at this process in terms of Zapatista self-presentation in Mexico, political change in Great Britain, Hindu-Muslim conflict in India, and other storytelling sites. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)