Empire of Knowledge Culture and Plurality in the Global Economy

by Lal, Vinay

• ISBN13: 9780745317366
• ISBN10: 0745317367
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-10-20
• Publisher: Pluto Press

Summary

During the media frenzy over the Millennium celebrations, there was hardly any mention of the fact that, for the majority of the world, there was no Millennium at all. This linear understanding of time is a specifically Western and Christian concept. This is just one of many examples that Vinay Lal uses to demonstrate that nearly every idea which we take for granted in the west is part of a politics of ideas. Oppression is usually associated with class struggle and other forms of economic monopoly. Lal looks beyond this, deconstructing the cultural assumptions that have emerged alongside capitalism to offer a devastating critique of the politics of knowledge at the heart of all powerbroking. Other topics examined are the concept of 'development', which has provided a mandate for surreptitious colonisation; and the idea of the 'nation state', something we have lived with for no more than two centuries, yet is accepted without question. Linking this to the emergence of 'international governance' through the United Nations, the US, and imperial economic bodies (such as the IMF and WTO), Lal explains how such universalisms came to dominate the trajectory of Western thought.

Author Biography

Vinay Lal is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has written widely on contemporary South Asian politics, Indian and American cultural politics and the global politics of knowledge. He is at present co-editing A Dictionary for The Twenty-First Century: The Future of Knowledge and Culture - to be co-published by OUP Delhi.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(15)
Reckoning with the Millennium	16	(26)
Monolithic Temporality	18	(13)
Democratizing/Pluralizing Temporality	31	(8)
Keeping Watch on Time	39	(3)
Politics in Our Times	42	(27)
Total Violence	45	(6)
Decolonization	51	(8)
Human Rights	59	(10)
Governance in the Twenty-First Century	69	(34)
Democratic Totalitarianism: Requiem for the US	73	(9)
Nations, But Far from United: Neanderthal Politics	82	(14)
The Economic Imperium: The Era of the WTO	96	(7)
Modern Knowledge and its Categories	103	(28)
The Violence of Development	109	(7)
The Forgetfulness of History	116	(6)
The Disciplinary Structure of Modern Knowledge	122	(9)
Ecology, Economy, Equality	131	(21)
The Ecology of Equality: The Ecosystem of a Life	138	(6)
The Economics of Inequality: Poverty and Wealth	144	(8)
Dissenting Futures	152	(31)
Finite Games: Hostage to ``The Clash of Civilizations''	158	(13)
Infinite Games: Dissent in the Gandhian Mode	171	(4)
The Civilizational Ethos and the Future of Dissent	175	(8)
Postscript: 9--11, or The Terrorism That Has No Name	183	(19)
So What's In a Date?	183	(2)
Islamic Fundamentalism: So What's In a Name?	185	(5)
Fundamentalisms: Family Resemblances	190	(5)
A Tale of Countries: The United States (Revisited) and Afghanistan (Discovered)	195	(7)
Notes	202	(35)
Suggestions for Further Reading	237	(10)
Index	247