Publisher Description

Globalization is often seen as a process of universal standardization under the auspices of market economics, technology, and hegemonic power. Resisting this process without endorsing parochial self-enclosure, Fred Dallmayr explores alternative visions that are rooted in distinct vernacular traditions and facilitate cross-cultural learning in an open-ended global arena. Dallmayr charts a 'grassroots' approach to the global village, an approach that relies on ethical and religious traditions and popular beliefs as launching pads for cross-cultural learning, dialogue, and self-transformation. Truly interdisciplinary in nature, Alternative Visions combines general philosophy, the philosophy of religion, and political, cultural, and post-colonial theory. It is an important book for students and scholars in all of these areas of study.

Author Biography

Fred Dallmayr is Packey J. Dee Professor of Political Theory at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of numerous books, including Beyond Orientalism: Essays on Cross-Cultural Encounter, The Other Heidegger, and G. W. F. Hegel: Modernity and Politics.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction Part 2 Part I. Modernity and Its Disontents Chapter 3 Truth and Difference: Some Lessons from Herder Chapter 4 The Politics of Nonidentity: Adorno, Postmodernism, and Edward Said Chapter 5 Liberation Perspectives East and West Chapter 6 Satyagraha: Gandhi's Truth Revisited Chapter 7 Humanity and Humanization: Comments on Confucianism Chapter 8 Liberating Remembrance: Thoughts on Ethics, Politics, and Recollection Part 9 Part II. Nationalism, Globalism, and Development Chapter 10 "Return to the Source": African Identity (After Cabral) Chapter 11 Nationalism in South Asia: Some Theoretical Points Chapter 12 Global Development? Alternative Voices from Delhi Chapter 13 Culture and Global Development Chapter 14 "Rights" Versus "Rites": Justice and Global Democracy Chapter 15 An "Inoperative" Global Community? Reflections on Nancy

Review

A very mature work, learned, sophisticated, and thoughtful, and yet full of youthful energy and openness for new questions and orientations. It does not simply deal with or speak about non-Western traditions and perspectives. It listens to them, learns from them, and takes them seriously as 'alternative visions.' The 'global village,' our multicultural and multipolar world with all its hopes, tensions, and ambiguities, is not just an object of study in this book: it is a living presence and challenge. -- Wilhelm Halbfass, University of Pennsylvania
Dallmayr's book is not just cutting edge, but cuts with a different edge, an edge honed by an easy familiarity with those who have thought hard and deep about modernity, nationalism, globalism, and development, but are little known or appreciated in the Anglo-American world. It is therefore especially welcome. -- Hans Oberdiek, Swarthmore College

Long Description

Globalization is often seen as a process of universal standardization under the auspices of market economics, technology, and hegemonic power. Resisting this process without endorsing parochial self-enclosure, Fred Dallmayr explores alternative visions that are rooted in distinct vernacular traditions and facilitate cross-cultural learning in an open-ended global arena. Dallmayr charts a 'grassroots' approach to the global village, an approach that relies on ethical and religious traditions and popular beliefs as launching pads for cross-cultural learning, dialogue, and self-transformation. Truly interdisciplinary in nature, Alternative Visions combines general philosophy, the philosophy of religion, and political, cultural, and post-colonial theory. It is an important book for students and scholars in all of these areas of study.

Review Quote

Dallmayr's book is not just cutting edge, but cuts with a different edge, an edge honed by an easy familiarity with those who have thought hard and deep about modernity, nationalism, globalism, and development, but are little known or appreciated in the Anglo-American world. It is therefore especially welcome.

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