Erikson’s preface explains that each chapter of the book is a revision of one of his major essays of the past two decades, sometimes incorporating other writings of his. He points out that collecting his essays gives him an opportunity to consider what they mean when put together, and that repeated material reflects those observations that struck him most deeply.

To write about identity is to reevaluate one’s thinking in the light of “acute historical change” (10); some of the reflections will only seem convincing in consideration of their setting, while others will be more long-range. The book is a successor to his earlier Childhood and Society.

Chapter 1, originally written between 1966 and 1967, is also the book’s prologue and serves as a retrospective look at the essays. Erikson states that the meaning of identity, as it is discussed in the book, has greatly changed in the past 20 years. “Identity crisis,” a term popularized by Erikson in Childhood and Society, has experienced a similar trajectory, as various groups along with the media seized on it to reflect any conflict within any group. Social scientists have also misused the terms. A positive consequence of the term’s wide usage is that “identity crisis” is no longer viewed as a catastrophe.