Product Description

Designed for anyone who wants to understand the challenges facing us after the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and in light of the conflict in the Middle East in 2003, "Jihad Vs McWorld" examines the conflicts of the modern world. Political scientist Benjamin R. Barber offers a penetrating analysis of the central conflict of our times: consumerist capitalism versus religious and tribal fundamentalism. These diametrically opposed but intertwined forces are tearing apart - and bringing together - the world as we know it, undermining democracy and the nation-state on which it depends. On the one hand, capitalism on the global level is rapidly dissolving the social and economic barriers between nations, transforming the world's diverse populations into a blandly uniform market. On the other hand, ethnic, religious, and racial hatreds are fragmenting the political landscape into smaller and smaller tribal units. Jihad versus Mcworld is the term that Barber has coined to describe the powerful and paradoxical interdependence of these forces, and in this volume he explores the alarming repercussions of this potent dialectic, sketching a democratic response to terrorism.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #449220 in Books
• Published on: 1996-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

The New York Times
'A bold invitation to debate the broad contours and future of society'

Government & Opposition
‘Jihad vs. McWorld is that rare phenomenon – a book that is immensely readable, yet with a serious theme’

San Francisco Chronicle
‘Challenging and instructive’

Customer Reviews

Useful but extremely limited; oversimplifies fundamentalism
Benjamin Barber's book, although on the surface laudable for its engagement with the complexities of global capitalism ("McWorld") and the search for group identities, fails to provide a truly thorough account of the ways in which "Jihad" and "McWorld" really function in today's world. The limits of his project are set at the outset through his implicit Humanism, which allows him to universalize the word "Jihad"-a multivalent term arising out of a complex Islamic history-to cover Hindu, American Protestant, Islamic, Buddhist, and every other imaginable fundamentalism. Although Barber at the outset self-consciously attempts to expand the meaning of the (Islamic) term, he contradicts himself in his discussion of Islamic fundamentalism: "Jihad has been a metaphor for anti-Western anti-universalist struggle throughout this book. The question is whether it is more than just a metaphor in the Muslim culture that produced the term" (207). Isn't Barber forgetting his earlier discussion of the ways in which he is consciously appropriating a word that happens to come from the Muslim world? First, Barber associates the word with parochialism, narrow-mindedness, and violence only to later claim that he meant to use the word metaphorically in regards to non-Islamic fundamentalism; as for the Islamic world, Barber implies that "Jihad" is no longer metaphoric. Barber falls into the too-easy trap of Western writers on Islam by implying that parochialism, narrow-mindedness, and violence are inherent in the Islamic world. "Muslim culture" may have produced the word "Jihad" (which, even in the Muslim context is an often contested term with meanings that drastically differ) but Barber badly appropriates it, only to imply that since Muslim culture produced it, perhaps Islam is the base for parochial narrow-mindedness in the world. By universalizing and misusing the term "Jihad" the book overlooks the specificity of each fundamentalism: "As the Muslim Brotherhood saw in Christianity a crusading corruptor, Know-Nothing American Protestants back in the 1880's saw in Mediterranean Catholic immigrants a grave peril to the American Republic, just as nervous Californians today worry about illegal Latino immigrants . . ." (212). The careless linking of these three disparate "fundamentalisms" (or "Jihad," as Barber would prefer to write) overlook, respectively, issues of decolonization, commerce and immigration, and racism / cultural imperialism. But perhaps the most careless omission in this book is a lack of engagement with Zionism and the formation of the state of Israel, which inform so much of the global fundamentalist motivation and rhetoric, while at the same time having implications for the nature and scope of "Americanization" and global capital (or, "McWorld"). In fact, Zionism is never mentioned in the text as an example of fundamentalism, and Israel is rarely alluded to. It would seem that any discussion of globalization, the modern nation-state, fundamentalism, and democracy would have to engage with the formation of Israel. In addition it would have to recognize the specificty of fundamentalisms, especially those arising in ex-colonial countries. Imperialism, colonialism, and decolonization are also issues noticeably absent in "Jihad vs. McWorld," a book which claims to discuss global themes without taking into account the way in which most of the globe is engaged in various processes of decolonization. The book's argument becomes much easier to make when messy and difficult issues such as decolonization, institutional racism, and the formation of Israel are left unexplored. Furthermore, Barber's implicit (Humanist) trust in an idealist notion of democracy and an unquestioned trust in the nation-state, with its attendant ideological machinery, provides too-easy solutions for the predicaments his book presumes to discuss.

10 years out of date
The book was probably an interesting read for untravelled Americans. For travelled Europeans it could be entitled 'The Bleedin Obvious'. Also, the author is excessively long winded and repetitive about getting his point across making several analogies along the way of which many are not required. The fact the book was written over 10 years ago really shows in its portrayal of communications and current economies. On the back of the book there is the impression that the book has been written on the back of September 11th, but this is has been engineered into the revised publication. Avoid it unless you have been in a coma for 10 years, or America.

This is important!
An important book, indeed. Barber reveals much of what is lost on most people with regards to the globalisation phenomonen. Far more realistic than Huntington, and if one also reads Hans-Peter Martin's "Global Trap", the chaos all around us seems a little clearer, if not making complete sense. Written in an unpretentious, accessible style, with detailed footnoting and refrences, this book should be compulsaray reading for those who feel a little confused about the way we're all heading.