Global Modernity, Development, and Contemporary Civilization: Towards a Renewal of Critical Theory [Hardcover]

This book investigates modern global civilization, offering an alternative to post-colonial theories and the multiple modernities approach (as well as the civilizational theory linked to it). It argues that modernity has become a global civilization that is heterogeneous and intertwined with other civilizations, and also aims at a renewal of critical theory that is not US-centric and Eurocentric, focusing instead on China, South Asia (India) and Latin America (Brazil). Dealing with the themes of centre-periphery relations, complexity (including culture and religion), democracy and emancipatory possibilities, this book is based on general theoretical ideas such as collective subjectivity, the interplay of memory and creativity, and the concept of modernizing moves, so as to deal with historical contingency.

General Introduction  Part 1: Critical Theory and Modern Civilization  1. Apogee, Limits and Renewal of Critical Theory  2. Civilization and Modernity  Part 2: Polarized Flexible Accumulation in an Unequal World  Part 2 Introduction  3. China Takes Off: The East Asian Experience  4. Latin America: Slipping Back to the Past?  5. India In and Out of South Asia: Dreams and Illusions.  Part 2 Conclusion  Part 3: Complexity and Re-Embeddings, Solidarity and Abstractions  Part 3 Introduction  6. India, Indic Civilization and Social Complexity: The Radical Case  7. China: Homogeneity and Post-Communist Pluralization  8. Latin America, the West and Complexity.  Part 3 Conclusion  Part 4: Democracy and the Persistence of Domination  Part 4 Introdl3=