Reason, Culture, Religion The Metaphysics of World Politics [Paperback]

Reason, Culture, Religion book provides a systematic overview of the study of world politics. The author then locates modernist world politics in its sacral context by discussing Taoist strategics, Buddhist economics, Islamic civics, Confucian Marxism, Hindu constructivism, Pagan feminism and Animist environmentalism. It concludes by asking what a world affairs worthy of the name would be.Preface Introduction: The Metaphysics of World Affairs MODERNITY World Affairs - The Modernist Project World Affairs - The Movie COMMUNITY The World Politics of World Heritage The World Politics of World Heritage-Japan SPIRITUALITY Taoist Strategics Buddhist Economics Islamic Civics Confucian Marxism Hindu Constructivism Pagan Feminism Animist Environmentalism Conclusion: A World Affairs for All the World References

Ralph Pettman, long one of the most eloquent and open-minded of that small band of scholars who have insisted that there must be some other way of thinking about international relations, explores a rich vein of neglected possibilities. This provides an effective context in which to contrast a range of more spiritual possibilities, which Pettman sketches with his usual economy, elegance and wit. The result is an engaging account of world affairs as a renewed process of global learning, an account that offers much needed relief from all those embarrassingly righteous stories about the end of history and the clash of civilizations.

- R.B.J. Walker,Professor of International Relations, University of Keele, UK, and Professor of Political Science, University of Victoria, Canada

Ralph Pettman has written a fascinatingly original account of world politics that is both a critique of conventional rational approaches and a coherent program for the enlargement of the political imagination to encompass cultural and religious sources of knowledge. As we search for ways to interpret political life from a genuninely global perspectivel£r