Jihad vs. McWorld: Terrorism's Challenge to Democracy - Softcover

Barber, Benjamin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345383044 ISBN 13: 9780345383044

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 1996

Synopsis

Jihad vs. McWorld is an analysis of the fundamental conflict of our times: consumerist capitalism versus religious and tribal fundamentalism. Jihad vs. McWorld offers a lens through which to understand the chaotic events of the post-Cold War world. Benjamin R. Barber argues that if you look only at the business section of the daily newspaper, you would be convinced that the world was increasingly united, that borders were increasingly porous, that corporate mergers were steadily knitting the globe into a single international market. But if you focus only on the front page, you would be convinced of just the opposite: that the world was increasingly riven by fratricide, civil war, and the breakup of nations. Barber provides a single map that unites these two sides of the same coin, and convincingly demonstrates that what capitalism and fundamentalism have in common is a distaste for democracy. For both, in different ways, lay siege to the nation-state itself - heretofore the only guarantor of conditions that have permitted democracy to flourish. Democracy, Barber suggests, may well fall victim to a twin-pronged attack: by a global capitalism run rampant whose essential driving force is nihilistic, at its root destructive of traditional values as it seeks to maximize profit-taking at virtually any moral or religious or spiritual cost; and by religious, tribal, and ethnic fanatics whose various creeds are stamped by intolerance and a rage against the "other." The paradox at the core of this bold book is that the tendencies of both Jihad and McWorld are at work, both visible sometimes in the same country at the same instant. Jihad pursues a bloody politics of identity, while McWorld seeks abloodless economics of profit. Belonging by default to McWorld, everyone is compelled to enroll in Jihad. But no one is any longer a citizen. And, asks Barber, without citizens, how can there be democracy?

About this title

Review:

"An important new book."¶
--Newsweek
¶
"Mr. Barber is. . . the first to put Jihad and McWorld together in an inescapable dialectic . . . . [It] stands as a bold invitation to debate the broad contours and future of society."¶
--Barbara Ehrenreich¶
The New York Times Book Review¶
¶
"COMPELLING. . . IMPRESSIVE. . . A thorough, engaging look at the current state of world affairs."¶
--The American Reporter

"Challenging and instructive."¶
--San Francisco Chronicle
¶
"Barber is well worth reading. . . for an introduction to the real world, look at Jihad vs. McWorld."¶
--The Nation¶

"Stimulating, tartly written."¶
--Publishers Weekly

Book Description:

The NO LOGO of the global conflict. Barber offers a penetrating and pertinent analysis of consumerist capitalism versus religious fundamentalism.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0345383044
• ISBN 13: 9780345383044
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432