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Loading... Al Qaeda and What It Means to Be Modernby John Gray
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Read this for an undergraduate political science class. A very good read. Short and to the point, this book gets to the bottom of the situation really quickly and lets us know that we're dealing with a different people here and one that we're not likely to sway quickly if at all. (  ) horacewimsey | Jan 15, 2009 |  An interesting read, showing how Al Qaeda is a product of the modern world. It also goes into the history of "modern", and how the ideas behind the modern, Western, world evolved. That makes for a very interesting read, explaining the break between the medieval outlook in which the future was expected to be exactly the same as the past, and the modern view based on science and progress. I will need to re-read this book before I can say I've really understood its message. Fortunately, it is written in a pretty readable style, so that shouldn't be a problem. Now I've just got to find the time... (  ) jguy7500 | Nov 4, 2007 | p. 4 "The modern myth is that science enables humanity to take charge of its destiny; but 'humanity' is itself a myth, a dusty remnant of religious faith. In truth there are only humans using the growing knowledge given them by science to pursue their conflicting ends." ( ) tessau | Nov 24, 2006 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 0571219802, Hardcover)Americans view the September 11th attacks as the act of an anachronistic and dangerous sect, one that championed medieval and outmoded ideals.But as John Gray demonstrates, the ideology of Al Qaeda is both Western and modern. Itself a byproduct of globalization's transnational capital flows and open borders, Al Qaeda's utopian zeal to remake the world descends from the same Enlightenment creed that informed both the disastrous Soviet experiment and the neo-liberal dream of a global free market. In this compact and wide-ranging tour de force, John Gray, the acclaimed author of False Dawn and Two Faces of Liberalism, narrates the sudden disintegration of this creed, our "ruling myth," the belief that societies everywhere will become more modern, more alike, and more prosperous through the spread of Enlightenment values—ourvalues. Touching on the philosophical roots of Al Qaeda, the brief history of the global free market, the collapse of states and the rise of unconventional warfare, Gray radically revises the conventional wisdom of the post-September 11 era. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:17 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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