The Westernization of the World: Significance, Scope and Limits of the Drive Towards Global Uniformity - Softcover

Latouche, Serge

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0745614299 ISBN 13: 9780745614298

Publisher: Polity, 1996

Synopsis

This provocative new book argues that the rise of the West to world domination has brought widespread social, cultural and material destruction in its wake.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Serge Latouche is one of Europe's leading authorities on the political economy of the Third World. In this provocative new book, he argues that the historical rise of the West to world domination has brought widespread destruction in its wake.

Latouche suggests that the drive towards global uniformity - of cultures, lifestyles and mentalities - has been the cause of untold political and economic disasters: ruined industries, widespread national debt, endless coups d'&Eacutetat, endemic civil wars, and the erosion of all non-western cultures.

Latouche mounts a powerful critique of the western concept of Third World 'development'. He argues that it has become synonymous with the accumulation of capital and is driven by specifically western values: technical progress, universalism and the mystery of nature - values which ought to be called into question. Oppressed people, he claims, want nothing to do with this kind of development: they aspire simply to survive, and if possible to live well, according to their own values and cultural choices.

This challenging and iconoclastic book will be essential reading for students and researchers in development studies, sociology, politics, and the economics of development.

About the Author:

Serge Latouche is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Paris XI.

About this edition

• Publisher: Polity
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0745614299
• ISBN 13: 9780745614298
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160