"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Those looking for similarly agreeable reportage in this book will, however, be disappointed. The Global Soul isn't just a travelogue, it's a thesis: a lyrical and skittish dissertation on the way our once wonderfully huge and diverse world, and the humanity therein, is being shrunk, homogenised, and impoverished by mass communication and international capital.
Iyer begins his quest for the troubled "Global Soul" in Los Angeles Airport. Here, in a place that is "half shopping mall, half border crossing" he finds plenty of evidence to support his vision of global anomie: wandering between the sushi bars, cyber cafés, and Irish pubs he sees an ethnically blurred populace whose spaced-out and half-crazed demeanour isn't entirely ascribable to jet lag. From LAX, Iyer proceeds to several other global crossing points: post-Imperial England; racially paranoid Atlanta; wackily Americanised Japan. In each he finds self-doubt, self-consciousness, suspicion; in each he finds a rejection of the past allied to a lack of faith in the future. In each he finds a vague, inchoate unhappiness that belies increasing prosperity.
If there is a problem with this book, it is over-ambition. Iyer's thesis is grandiose, and sometimes one therefore feels the need for a little more evidence than the meandering if effervescent anecdotes adduced here. But this is still a valuable book: timely, intriguing, and important.--Sean Thomas
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
£ 2.36
Within U.S.A.
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. Brand New Copy. Seller Inventory # BBB_new0679454330
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. In shrink wrap. Seller Inventory # SDBOX63-CG11182020-26
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think0679454330
Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # newMercantile_0679454330
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0679454330
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. Buy for Great customer experience. Seller Inventory # GoldenDragon0679454330
Book Description Condition: New. Buy with confidence! Book is in new, never-used condition 1.25. Seller Inventory # bk0679454330xvz189zvxnew
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. New Hardcover! Pristine unmarked pages, may have very slight warehouse wear, no remainder marks, still a great buy straight from warehouse, sealed in plastic, exact artwork as listed, Seller Inventory # 313211008038
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard0679454330
Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # FrontCover0679454330