Amartya Sen has a long and interesting article reflecting on the successes (not so much on the failures) of multiculturalism in the U.K. and India. He emphasizes the role of reason, as well as the stress on multiple individual identities, in establishing (I use the word in a self-consciously "First Amendment" way) multiculturalism, as opposed to "plural monoculturalism." In so doing, he finesses the potential conflict between reason and revelation, which has powerful theoretical as well as practical consequences.

Still, the article is well worth reading.