Rating: 
Summary: Impenetrable and difficult to wade through ....
Review: The author works for Atlantic Monthly. Ok, so we should expect a decent level of professionalism, I suppose. I'm reading this book as part of the requirements of a Western Civ course at CCNY, NYC. I find this book to be impenetrable and very, very difficult to read. I have had to plod, plod, plod through it. And I've spent the last 10 years as a professional writer. Being an avid listener of NPR, most of this books' observations are old hat to me. I'm sick of hearing his statistics recounted a million times over. He's describing a world that I already know in detail from paying casual attention to world events over the last 15 years. For instance, I R*E*A*L*I*Z*E that most of the personal consumer items that I've bought in the past five years were manufactured in China. Please don't present this revealation to me as though it had religious implications. Generally, I would prefer to read something else. Something more penetrable. Something that sparks the imagination more than this book does. Sincerely,
Rating:
Summary: Gross.
Review: I am reading this book as part of a Western Civ class. Actually, last semester, my professor was raving about how interesting this book was, and his description of it intrigued me enough to take the second semester of his course, in which he would assign us the book. I took the class, and over the past two weeks I've been reading the book, I'm almost done. This is one of the most boring books I've ever read. Same idea over and over again: Corporate America is greedy. 300 pages that could be summed up in twenty. However there are some passages that are fairly interesting toward the end, so it gets 2 stars. Don't waste your money though.
Rating: 
Summary: Prophetic and relevant
Review: I read this book prior to the September 11 attacks but returned to it for perspective on the situation. I quickly realized that Barber's analysis was both prophetic and relevant to our current crisis. In essence, Barber demonstrates that what we consider to be good in the industrialized world -- specifically, an ever-expanding capitalist, consumerist lifestyle -- is viewed with deadly suspicion by many in the non-industrialized world. That's because the wholesale acceptance of our culture is perceived by many of the world's poor as a threat to their traditional lifestyles. The author points out that capitalism originally took root and flourished because of Western democracy's ability to curb the excesses of unfettered profit-making. But today's multinational corporations are no longer restrained by democratic forces in many parts of the third world. There, capitalism works in the name of absentee investors as a predatory force, stripping communities of their material and cultural resources, creating a branded, homogenous "McWorld" that too often leaves multitudes of impoverished people in its wake. Such conditions breed anger and resentment against Westerners in general and often against the American symbols of global capitalism in particular. In the worst case scenarios, negative energy is manifested by terrorism. So as the multinationals connect the world more closely together with sophisticated communications and production systems, "tribal units" such as terrorist organizations strive at the same time to tear this world apart. Somehow, "global democracy" needs to catch up with economic globalisation, the author reasons, to secure a more stable "global civil society". Such a world should more equitably balance the needs of people with capitalism. Barber believes that if people were truly empowered as citizens they could reshape their communities to better serve their own needs. In the end, this would effectively diminish the attractiveness of joining in the ultimately self-destructive world of "Jihad". Furthermore, the long-term growth of capitalism itself also requires stable markets. Barber points out that unless we more equitably share the benefits of capitalism with so-called emerging market countries, the instabilities that are created will eventually undermine our own success too. As policy makers struggle to learn how we can prevent another attack from happening, we would do well to consider the intelligent analysis in this outstanding book.
Rating: 
Summary: A Mixed Bag of Thought Provocation
Review: Benjamin Barber's Jihad vs. McWorld stands as a decent starting point to much of the current anti-consumerist, pro-civic writing of the past several years. As such its awkward prose, repetitive use of the same illustrative examples, and uneven treatment of aspects of the proposed dialectic may be forgiven by some. Barber stakes out an ambitious goal: to examine the contemporary world in terms of a dialectic between universalizing (American pop culture and consumerist) capitalism and particularism based in nationalism, fundamentalism or resistant non-conformity. In this dialectic, the forces create, sustain and oppose one another, both in ways that can be seen as detrimental to the progress of democratization. Barber's analysis of the McWorld aspect will be familiar to anyone to anyone who's familiar with the current critiques of brand identities, transnational corporatism, and media monopolies. McWorld thrives in opposition to nation-states, those entities which provide one of the main opportunities to counteract unintended consequences in the tragedy of the commons. McWorld needs new needs, and if they cannot be found they will be made. McWorld seeks to universalize, yet also to create niches for convenient sorting of consumers. On the other hand the force of "Jihad" is based in the particularism of the French, resistant to the onslaught of American cinema, Islamic states utilizing censorship to prevent cultural contamination by Western pop culture, of the Chinese placing national filters on the internet. Sadly, Barber's analysis of Jihad feels far weaker than his take on McWorld, starting with his choice of the word Jihad. While he explains several times that he doesn't intend to conflate to fundamentalisms and particularism of his Jihad with Islam, his word choice can do nothing else (and was probably wise from a commercial viewpoint). This weakness is even more relevant today when it is this particularizing force which we may need to understand more than the thoroughly critiqued corporate thrust. Why does all of this matter? Because the future of the world depends on it, of course. The world, suspended in these forces of formation, must move towards greater democracy. Democracy, however, is far more than voting and laws and a constitution, but, rather, is predicated on the existence of a civil society, to which both Jihad and McWorld may be inimical. If this review feels awkwardly chunked into three parts, with some unnecessary repetition, then it has also managed to mirror that aspect of the book. If it's also given you the urge to grab a pen and scribble questions, comments, reactions and counterarguments and examples into the margins then it has mirrored an even more significant aspect of the book, which is to say that it does a good enough job of provoking thought that it does not need to be right.
Rating: 
Summary: Lesson of this book: He's smarter than you are.
Review: My first thought upon reading this book was: What is this guy thinking? I was assigned this book for a college government class and it is was the biggest waste of time ever. The guy writes like he owns stock in Webster's dictionaries because you can't read it without one. He uses the most scholarly words and complex phrases possible in every situation. You have to read some parts twice even if it is a simple point. The author (Dr. Barber) came to give a lecture on his book at my university and he actually read an embellished version of the introduction to the book for an hour in most boring monotone imaginable. I wish he would have just kicked me in the head and saved me some time. Sadly, this book only sells because of 9/11, it's as simple as that. Anyways, buy it if you REALLY REALLY want to know about the subject (even though some of his ideas are totally worthless) or if you are some sort of masochist.
Rating:
Summary: Writes like an associate professor who's up for tenure
Review: I found this guy's writing style exceptionally annoying. He seems to have made a conscious effort to choose the most abstruse, pompous phrasing possible, even when describing the simplest of concepts. This book reads a bit like something Frasier and Niles Crane would write: full of themselves, striving at every opportunity to sound erudite while coming acros to many as pompous, arrogant, and somewhat out of touch. Some of his analyses are also a bit of a stretch. In many cases, he'll use some obscure reference to, say, Milton or Keats or explain the motivations of a Palestinian suicide bomber or a Balkan nationalist. This to me seems rather silly. Whatever the motivations of a Palestinian suicide bomber, they're more likely to be explained by such concepts as religous fanaticism, economic desperation, and political alienation than by some eggheaded reference to Paradise Lost.
Rating:
Summary: Out to lunch
Review: What really hit me about the book is: 1) He views it as bad that people in France can get Big Macs and watch Baywatch and people in America can get real French food. He wants each culture to stay unpolluted by other cultures. Personally, I feel that is the world wants to eat Big Macs while watching Baywatch, it's a good thing that they can instead of being restricted to food and TV they like less. 2) He lists Chad as the most fair user of energy in the world - because they use the least per person. I view Chad as a place of short and miserable lives who's abject poverty makes energy use beyond the reach of all but a few. While prolifigite energy use is not good, I think the energy use necessary for a first world lifestyle for a countries citizens is a good thing. It means longer, happier, healthier lives. 3) He views consumerism as a terrible thing - selling people things they don't have to have. While it's true we all buy things that are necessary to a basic life - again I think it's a good thing that people can buy things who's basic purpose is enjoyment. I see no advantage to giving up TV, movies, computer games, etc. To sum it up, I would bet this guy does not have a TV in his house (which is fine). But he also probably thinks others should not too - while most of the world would be thrilled to be able to afford and have a TV in their house. And it's funny to read his predictions of the U.S. Economy going downhill (he wrote in 1995) when the last 7 years have shown him to be dead wrong on that.
Rating:
Summary: Can Democracy survive?
Review: This is a 'must read' for Americans. If we cannot preserve the democratic process in our own country, it may cease to exist as a form of government. The 'tribal' or single-issue factions in our country such as 'right-to-lifers', the NRA, trade unions, and most 'associations,' are fundamentally anti-democratic entities. Some extremists within these organizations are simply terrorists who justify their actions under a banner of 'freedom of expression' within a democratic society. They 'use' democracy to subvert it. At the other extreme are large (and small) companies that begrudgingly 'comply' with the rules and regulations laid down by a democratic society. Whether it be Hooker Chemical (Love canal), Microsoft or Enron, they are driven by 'the bottom line' and would readily use their economic power to subvert the democratic process. The extremists in this group occasionally step outside the bounds and hurt masses of people leading to well-publicized financial and environmental atrocities. They too use the freedoms of democracy to subvert the process for their profit-oriented culture. Professor Barber offers an insightful glimpse into theses two phenomena. "We all belong to McWorld by default," he writes. In view of Sep 11th, this is a very important book for all Americans to ponder.
Rating:
Summary: Both Interesting and Frustrating
Review: People (including me) are always saying that this or that book is "uneven." But I don't remember reading anything that whipsaws quite so extremely between authentic insights and gobbledygook. This is another book that had been gathering dust for years on my shelf until I picked up after 9/11 -- the title, after all, makes it sound like an analysis of the clash between Western hyper-capitalist values (or "modernity") and Islamic values. Of course, it was written in 1995, so it's no surprise that the actual subject matter is different, but still interesting. McWorld refers to "post-national or even anti-national" corporate values; Jihad refers to most any ethnically-derived movement, and most of his examples come from the remnants of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Barber is really good on the big point that both of these trends are antithetical to the civil society that ought to be the goal of nations. He's also excellent on industrialization and the Third World (and the subgroup that he calls the "Terminal World"). This comes early in the book .Subsequent chapters on media consolidation are predictable and shrill. Then the book tilts into the worst sort of academic writing. Sample: "The data are too protean to be definitive and the events too vulnerable to distortion by the very probes that affect to explain them to be detachable from the normative frames by which we try to capture them." Stop, stop! Anyway, some of the concluding chapters return to more useful form, and underscore the main themes about the dangers of various post-nationalist forces. But getting there is heavy going.
Rating:
Summary: An important, timely, serious book with a catchy title
Review: Benjamin Barber's "Jihad vs. McWorld" is popular political science at its best - an important book first published in 1995, but only now, in the aftermath of September 11, getting the attention it deserved all along. One reason for this attention now is the catchy title, which seems to offer relatively easy-to-comprehend answers to questions on peoples' minds like: "why do they hate us so much" and "is this just an isolated incident or part of a broader phenomenon?" And, to a large extent, Barber succeeds in providing answers (or at least in asking the right questions), in neither a "dumbed-down" fashion nor a too-theoretical-for-anyone-but-political-scientists style. In sum, "Jihad vs. McWorld," is an important, timely, serious book that is also highly readable. What does "Jihad vs. McWorld" have to say? Well...a LOT, and far too much for any Amazon.com review! So, I'll just try to summarize a few of Barber's main points. First, let's start with "Jihad." As Barber employs it in his book, "Jihad" is not specific to Islam or even to terrorism, but instead is used as a metaphor for the "anti-Western, anti-universalist" struggle against "McWorld" (I'll get to that one in a minute). Although it's interesting that, at the moment, most of the opposition to "McWorld" appears to be coming from the Muslim world, "Jihad" as Barber uses it is not specific to Islam, but exists everywhere, including the American "heartland." Thus, in Barber's view, Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan, Aryan Nations, "militias," and Al Qaeda are all manifestations of the same anti-modern, anti-cosmopolitan, anti-democratic phenomenon, and in a way are natural allies (except that - luckily -- they detest each other more than they detest "McWorld"). Jihad is not just for extremists, though, but for any group of people that sees "McWorld" (correctly) as a threat -- to their common identity, to their sense of belonging, to their "elementary justice and morals," to human dignity, to tradition, etc. Unfortunately, though, Jihad is fatally flawed (anti-democratic, narrow, provincial, exclusivist, even racist) in Barber's view. And, in the end, it's probably doomed to defeat by "McWorld" anyway (as the Borg in Star Trek would say, "resistance is futile!"), although in the short-run it can do a great deal of damage (i.e., September 11). OK, so what about "McWorld?" Barber spends most of his time building the case against (and then bashing away at) "McWorld," which is what he appears to know best, since of course that's the world he lives in. Plus, it's so EASY to bash "McWorld," and in a way it would almost be fun if it weren't so serious (and malignant). Thus, Barber takes aim at: fast food, Hollywood, MTV (sex, violence, misogyny, consumerism, glorification of youth), Disney ("a cultural Chernobyl"), malls, suburbia, consumerism, materialism, technology and "laissez-faire" capitalism run amok, among other things. All easy targets, almost like shooting fish in a barrel, and it's been done by many other authors (see "Fast Food Nation," "Suburban Nation," "Technopoly," "Bowling Alone," etc., etc.), but Barber generally does an excellent job at describing "McWorld" - and trashing it! Barber's weightiest criticism of "McWorld" is that it is an anti-democratic, totalitarian system that leads to all kinds of bad outcomes, not the least of which is reducing us all to mere consumers (as opposed to citizens, for instance). Ultimately, though, Barber's book really isn't so much McWorld vs JIHAD as McWorld vs, democracy, the "common good," and civil society (the "domain of citizens" which mediates "between private markets and big government"). Barber presents the values of democracy (slow, active, engaged, requiring education, valuing words, ideas, patience, and an informed, mature citizenry concerned with some "higher good") as directly antithetical to those of "McWorld" (fast, mindless, impatient, image-driven, impulsive, infantile, "gimme, gimme, gimme!"). Barber pushes his argument a little too far and too hard here, in my opinion, with little real proof that democracy is dying, and even less that it is dying BECAUSE of "McWorld's" depredations. Still, it's interesting stuff, and personally I think there's a lot of truth here. In the end, Barber concludes that the only way to effectively fight Jihad and McWorld is by promoting and nurturing democracy and civil society. Barber believes that we could - theoretically at least -- use institutions already in place (the state, international organizations and legal frameworks) to do so. Sadly, though, Barber believes that at the moment the necessary institutions are either non-existent or have been severely weakened. So, having laid out both the world's bleak alternatives at the moment (Jihad, McWorld) as well as the possible solutions (democracy, civil society), Barber in the end comes out as basically a pessimist. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean he's wrong; after September 11, we can only wish that he were!
|
