Guneratne argues that shared cultural symbols -- including religion, language, and common myths of descent -- are not a necessary condition for the existence of a shared sense of peoplehood. The Tharu of lowland Nepal are a group of culturally and linguistically diverse people who, only a few generations ago, would not have acknowledged each other as belonging to the same ethnic group. Today the Tharu are actively redefining themselves as a single ethnic group in Nepal's multiethnic polity.  (NPL66, $24.95)