With the end of that war, this has changed. Nation-states react defensively as local politics and global politics increasingly articulate demands for human and cultural rights and for equity in access to resources. Such demands are apparent in eastern Europe and other parts of what used to be the Soviet empire, in western Europe and the Middle East, in the former first, second and third worlds. These demands have become universal. Racism and ethnic conflict, accordingly, allied as they are to such demands, have become global problems today.
Identities based on racial criteria are common in many societies of the modern world.
Theories claiming that these identities are based upon biological and genetic factors are also common. The two chapters in Part Three, written by trained geneticists, address and refute these theories and their inferences.