The term identity comes from the Latin idem ‘same
’ and has been part of English usage since at least the fourteenth century. Mathematics, logic, and psychology have continued to use the term, with its original emphasis on sameness or equivalence. In the nineteenth century, as the social sciences took on studies of identity in general and national identity in particular, sameness in the sense of general uniformity prevailed as well. The European nation-state expected the boundaries of Kulturnation...
