Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory - Softcover

Parekh, Bhikhu

3.71

63 ratings by Goodreads

9780333608821: Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0333608828 ISBN 13: 9780333608821

Publisher: Macmillan Pub Ltd, 2000

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Bhikhu Parekh shows that the Western tradition of political philosophy from Plato onwards has very limited theoretical resources to cope with cultural diversity. He then discusses how the Western tradition can be revised and what new conceptual tools are needed. The core of the book addresses the important theoretical questions raised by contemporary multicultural society, especially the nature and limits of intercultural equality and fairness, national identity, citizenship, and cross cultural political discourse.

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About the Author:

BHIKHU PAREKH is Professor of Political Theory, University of Hull. A political theorist of international renown he has held visiting chairs at many of the top US universities as well as in Vienna and Barcelona. He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Baroda and a member of India's University Grants Commission in the early 1980s. On his return to the UK he became Deputy Chairman and Acting Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equalty. He is currently chair of the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain whose report will be launched by leading government ministers in autumn 2000. He was elected British Asian of the Year in 1992 and received the BBC's award for special lifetime achievement in 1999.

Review:

Parekh is fair, thoughtful, fastidious and inventive in his theorizing of multiculturalism, but his viewpoint is rooted in an attempt to understand and convey a non-Western outlook. While his approach is always balanced, his first impulse is to explain and, where defensible, defend viewpoints that Western liberals have traditionally found suspect. It is a strength of this work that Parekh not only develops a brilliantly conceived theory of multiculturalism, but applies that theory meaningfully to thorny policy questions. This is a truly important and original book. (Benjamin Barber, Director, Walt Whitman Center, Rutgers)

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