Rating: 
Summary: McGarbage
Review: To think a tree died for this book! What a waste and please don't waste your time. Barber's point, assuming he has one, is lost in his attemp to be flip and witty. He could have summed up his thesis in a paragraph but then he wouldn't have a book to sell. Two forwards and an afterword? He should change his name to McVerbose. If you can read buy another book and if you can't read you don't need this one.
Rating:
Summary: Panicky and cutesy
Review: This book looks at the world from a panicky, provincial perspective that is palmed off as a sophisticated global consciousness about "the way things are today." Barber worked hard on it, and he clipped a whole lot of articles, but the result is not anything you can rely on.
The cover snapshot is appropriate to the book: It's a perfectly banal scene of a woman in a chador drinking a Pepsi, but it is presented as if it should shock us. (It probably <em>does</em> shock people who still imagine Arabs brandishing curved swords as they charge across the sands on their camels.) The text is much like the photo: Both convey a vague sense of threat from the non-Western peoples of the world: nations who supposedly "define themselves by the slaughter of tribal neighbors" and are liable to destroy democracy and modernity (a word Barber never pauses to define) if "McWorld" doesn't get there first.
One would expect a more insightful, less parochial understanding of foreign nations and conflicts from a Rutgers professor of political science. But this book is as crude as the silly choice of the word "jihad," with its Islamic associations, to represent "tribalism." Barber halfway apologizes for the choice in his introduction to the second edition.
This book only deserves attention because it <em>received</em> so much attention in our squirrel-brained media. In a way, Jihad vs. McWorld is merely a product of the phenomenon it tries to comprehend. Barber composes little sermons about the insufficiency of the "McWorld" culture of entertainment and marketing -- but he can't resist putting cute bravura touches on his own presentation, to the detriment of his analysis. He loves to coin new terms, some of them quite silly ("infotainment telesector"), then he misuses perfectly good terms by attaching bizarre meanings to them -- like "faction" to mean "factual fiction," and "passion play" to mean a sexually charged serial drama. Does the man not know that these words already have other definitions? He's like the Humpty Dumpty character in Lewis Carroll: When he uses a word, it means whatever he wants it to mean. Now that I think about it, this book bears a certain overall resemblance to Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, except it's not as much fun to read.
I'm sure Professor Barber gives very entertaining classroom lectures. But I wouldn't mind if he would quit writing these cutesy yet panicky books. (He's done another one, you know.)
Rating: 
Summary: Changed sub-title?
Review: Before 9-11, when I was reading this book for a sociology class, the subtitle read "How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping the World"
After 9-11 when everything with "Jihad" in the title became a best-seller I noticed at a bookstore that the new editions had the sub-title reading "Terrorism's threat to Democracy."
The book was pretty good, a welcome break from the textbooks and very readable, but I thought changing the sub-title was a pretty lame way to capitalize on 9-11.
Check out Random House's website for a picture of the "terrorism" cover.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent!
Review: This book accomplishes its mission (challenge & threaten our ethno-centric views about American capitalism & democracy) so well, that it has generated the overreaction and critism of the other reviewers on this site. Barber illicits us to ask very painful questions about our society and its future, and needless to say, such a provocative book creates controversy. However, Barber's merits should not be judged by whether you agree with his theories. The book is very well researched & documentated and Barber does a nice job of tying philosophy, economics, politics, sociology into a neat and comprehensive view of humanity. My only criticism is that he tends to overuse the jargon d'jour, and the book can be dry reading at times. I highly recommend this book to anyone who perceives the decline of the American empire and is looking for clear, concise diagnostics and remedies.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting ideas, works as an introduction....
Review: ...to certain ideas about our world. He reminds me of the guy who wrote Corporation Nation: Not a bad idea, but can't seem to decide if he wants to make accessible, bestselling books or write a serious, insightful study (although Corp. Nation was completely worthless).The dialectic he's describing is powerful (unless you're an academic, in which case you yawn and say "oh, how quaint") and it's certainly interesting, but Barber kind've rolls through this book with too many general statements and not enough good, hard data. It boils down to a rant that a) sounds like it probably makes sense if you agree with it, and b) sounds a little ridiculous if you don't. Don't read it if you expect a tight analysis of globalization/corporatization, or a tight analysis of the Islamist/Western conflict. I'd recommend it for people who want to get into politics, etc, but aren't ready for anything too comprehensive. Check out "Arab and Jew", or "Globalization and its Discontents," or better yet, find some original stuff from the World Bank and the Islamist writers, and put that critical thought to work. And don't write a bad review just cuz it wasn't about what you thought it was about. Read the dust jacket, dopey.
Rating:
Summary: McWorld? More like McMoron
Review: This work is hardly groundbreaking theory. Even for 1995. The fact that Barber can argue that McWorld (basically capitalism) is detrimental to democracy is ridiculous. Also, Jihad hates McWorld, not because of its global market economy but because of who we are. Jihad hates America because we are a "Christian" nation. Read the Qur'an.
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