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Why the Rest Hates the West
paperback
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- Length: 188 pages
- Published: May 13, 2004
- Imprint: IVP
- Item Code: 3202
- ISBN: 9780830832026
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"Why do they hate us so much?"
Many in the U.S. are baffled at the hatred and anti-Western sentiment they see on the international news. Why are people around the world so resentful of Western cultural values and ideals?
Historian Meic Pearse unpacks the deep divides between the West and the rest of the world. He shows how many of the underlying assumptions of Western civilization directly oppose and contradict the cultural and religious values of significant people groups. Those in the Third World, Pearse says, "have the sensation that everything they hold dear and sacred is being rolled over by an economic and cultural juggernaut that doesn?t even know it?s doing it . . . and wouldn?t understand why what it?s destroying is important or of value."
Pearse's keen analysis offers insight into perspectives not often understood in the West, and provides a starting point for intercultural dialogue and rapprochement.
"Immensely rich insight, written nicely by a learned and penetrating thinker. This may be the best Christian reflection on the deeper questions around globalization, global culture wars and the great clash of civilizations I've yet seen. . . . If you've only got time for one book of this sort, pass by Chomsky and Perle. Skip narrow-minded ideologues like Michael Moore and Ann Coulter and read Meic Pearse. He is a thoughtful Christian who brings theological acumen and global sensitivities to his critique of modernity, and offers profound Christian insight as he unpacks the deep divides between the West and the rest."
"Meic Pearse has exposed our therapy culture in its failure to move us from self-absorption to the freedom of self-esteem found when we truly serve others. . . . This book is necessary reading for all who would be responsible leaders and informed Christians in the twenty-first century."
"I know of no more urgent discussion in our day. . . . Could someone please get a copy to George W. Bush?"
"This is a passionate, unfashionable and important book, recommended reading for anybody who has begun to suspect that the Western economic and cultural project is unsustainable."
"This book is a serious and stirring call to Christians to reaffirm the central position of their faith. In an age which mistakes nescience for open-mindedness and enforced nihilism for toleration, this call to know, to affirm and to witness deserves a wide audience."
"Meic Pearse specializes in asking difficult questions about the most significant issues facing us today--about religions, about politics, and about how cultures and societies come into conflict. . . . This is a challenging, provocative book, with a broad social and historical vision."
"Pearse succeeds in providing an easy to understand, clearly defined introduction to sources of conflict between the Western and non-Western worlds."
"Those who wish to place some of the cultural crisis in the West in larger cultural and historical context will find much food for thought, and the book is useful for stimulating discussion. Whether one agrees with Pearse's analysis of Western culture, his assertion that non-Western values will increasingly demand serious attention in the West can hardly be disputed."
"This is . . . possibly the best, most intelligent, most humane brief argument that the West, rather than the Rest, needs reform."
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
1. Barbarian Juggernauts
2. On the Importance of Being Earnest
3. How to Be Sinless: Human Rights and the Death of Obligation
4. Killing the Past: Tradition, Progress and Unprogress
5. Impersonal States
6. Imagined Communities
7. Divided Love, Infantilized Culture
8. Observations in Passing?
Conclusion: The Renewed Relevance of a Religious--and Moral--Vision
Notes
Index
