The essays in this collection are a blend of the personal and the academic. They discuss a number of controversies in the United Kingdom and the United States, including the ethnic question on the U.K. census form, Black-Jewish relations, Jewish and Muslim methods of slaughtering animals for food, and animal rights. In the opening essay, the author, an English Jew now living in Chicago, explains what it was that drew him into these issues. Combining philosophy with cultural and ethnic studies, he emphasizes language and the way words not only confuse but also prejudice our thinking. The opening essay introduces this emphasis via a verse from the Jewish prayer the Amidah. A concluding essay sums up the crucial importance of minding our language.