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Al Qaeda and What It Means to Be Modern
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Al Qaeda and What It Means to Be Modern Hardcover - 2003

by John Gray

Exploring such topics as the collapse of the state and the rise of unconventional warfare, the history of the global free market and the revival of geopolitics, the modernity of fundamentalism and the prospects of an American Empire, this book is the leading British analyst's debunking of the modernity myth.


From the publisher

While many Americans view the September 11th terrorist attack as the act of an anachronistic and dangerous sect, one that champions medieval and outmoded ideals, John Gray here argues that in fact the ideology of Al Qaeda is both Western and modern, a by-product of globalization's transnational capital flows and open borders. Indeed, according to Gray, Al Qaeda's utopian zeal to remake the world in its own image descends from the same Enlightenment creed that informed both the disastrous Soviet experiment and the new neoliberal dream of a global free market.

In this excellent short introduction to modern thought (The Guardian), first published in 2003, Gray warns that the United States, once a champion of revolutionary economic and social change, must now understand its new foes. He also confronts some of the faults he perceives in Western ideology: the faith that global development will eradicate war and hunger, trust in technology to address the coming catastrophe of population explosion, and the belief that democracy is an infallible institution that can serve as political panacea for all.


Details

  • Title Al Qaeda and What It Means to Be Modern
  • Author John Gray
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Edition First Edition
  • Pages 145
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher New Press, New York, New York, U.S.A.
  • Date September 1, 2003
  • ISBN 9781565848054 / 1565848055
  • Weight 0.64 lbs (0.29 kg)
  • Dimensions 7.72 x 5.58 x 0.71 in (19.61 x 14.17 x 1.80 cm)
  • Library of Congress subjects Post-communism, World politics - 20th century
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2003051303
  • Dewey Decimal Code 306.2

Media reviews

Citations

  • Kirkus Reviews, 07/15/2003, Page 949

About the author

John Gray is a political philosopher and former professor of European thought at the London School of Economics. He is the author of False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism, Two Faces of Liberalism, and Al Qaeda and What It Means to Be Modern, all published by The New Press. He lives in London.
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Al Qaeda and What It Means to Be Modern

Al Qaeda and What It Means to Be Modern

by John Gray

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Al Qaeda and What It Means to Be Modern
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Al Qaeda and What It Means to Be Modern

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