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After 9/11, Fareed Zakaria wrote a perceptive
and much-talked about cover story for
Newsweek magazine, "Why Do They Hate
Us?" That essay captured the bewilderment of most
Americans at being subjected to such a brutal attack. Virtually all Americans felt that they were innocent victims. Most were also probably unaware that in many corners of the world, many people were also asking "Why do Americans hate us?"
The curious paradox here is that America is by far the best educated society on the globe. The percentage of its citizens who have had tertiary education and who have access to all the modern sources of knowledge, from cable TV to the Internet, is among the highest in the world. Yet the American population also appears to be among the least wellinformed on global affairs. One hope I have in writing this book is to make American society aware that daily, almost 5.75 billion pairs of eyes are watching, studying and judging America. Their perception will be influenced by their geographical location as well as by their history and culture. The movie "Rashomon" made us aware that the same scene can be viewed in many different ways through different eyes. The book provides a few illustrations of how the same global events can be viewed so differently in different corners of the globe. This may also explain why the language may appear somewhat strange and unusual to American critics. American political analysts are accustomed to using a certain range of well-known political concepts to describe contemporary realities. My hope is to provide American observers a chance to understand that there are also non-American perspectives and to consider the possibility of alternative descriptions of the contemporary world. America can turn things around and regain the reservoirs of goodwill that it has both accumulated and lost absent-mindedly. To achieve this, it may be helpful to pay more attention to the thoughts and aspirations of the other 5.75 billion occupants of our shrinking globe. In so doing, America will only be heeding the wisdom of its founding fathers who said that America should "show a decent respect for the opinions of mankind." |
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HARDCOVERISBN 978-1-58648-268-8 Pub date: 02/04/05 Price: $26.00/36.95 Canada 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 256 pages Carton Quantity: 28 Asian Studies, Current Events, World Affairs Selling Territory: W Rights: FIrst Serial, British Commonwealth, Translation, Audio & Electronic Rights: PublicAffaris Performance Rights: Janklow & Nesbit Associates PAPERBACK ISBN 978-1-58648-379-1 Pub date: 03/27/06 Price: $15.00/19.95 Canada 5 1/2 x 8 1/4 256 pages none Carton Quantity: 32 Asian Studies, Current Events, World Affairs Selling Territory: W Pub history: |
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