'An unusually perceptive and balanced appraisal of the globalization hype and its relation to the reality of global capitalism.' Immanuel Wallerstein

"A compelling essay on the contemporary human condition." William D. Coleman, Director of the Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University "An unusually perceptive and balanced appraisal of the globalization hype and its relation to the reality of global capitalism." Immanuel Wallerstein, Yale University In his provocative new book Arif Dirlik argues that the present represents not the beginning of globalization, but its end. We are instead in a new era in the unfolding of capitalism -- "global modernity". The fall of communism in the 1980s generated culturally informed counter-claims to modernity. Globalization has fragmented our understanding of what is "modern". Dirlik's "global modernity" is a concept that enables us to distinguish the present from its Eurocentric past, while recognizing the crucial importance of that past in shaping the present.

"Dirlik pushes our understanding of the contemporary world forward by arguing that globalization is not something happening that has yet to fulfill its promise, but something that has happened producing global modernity, a world of new unities and fractures. This world is one where human agency acquires more importance and cracks in the façade of modernity offer avenues of hope to those willing to act. A compelling essay on the contemporary human condition." -William D. Coleman, Distinguished University Professor, Canada Research Chair on Global Governance and Public Policy, Director of the Institute on Globalization and the Human Condition, McMaster University "An unusually perceptive and balanced appraisal of the globalization hype and its relation to the reality of global capitalism." -Immanuel Wallerstein, Yale University