In nine essays on Afrocentrism, anti-Semitism, and other aspects of identity and intellect, Reid-Pharr (English, Johns Hopkins U.) seeks to expose the "essentially impermeable and thus impure nature" of all American identities. "Moreover," he writes, "even as I demonstrate repeatedly the excessive lengths to which many have gone to reproduce the boundaries of various articulations of the self, I continue to emphasize my belief that the great joy of living in the modern world is the recognition that all processes of naming, all names (black, gay, man), are ultimately monuments to the impossibility of ever fully distinguishing self from other. ... We always find the universal." With a thoughtful foreword by science-fiction author Samuel R. Delany (Princeton U.). Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)