Volume 44, Number 2 · February 6, 1997
The World Turned Upside Down
By Frank Kermode
The Dictionary of Global Culture
edited by Kwame Anthony Appiah, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Knopf, 771 pp., $35.00
The publishers of this large double-columned book, throwing modesty to the winds, as publishers perhaps must in these hard times, claim that it 'provides what every American needs to know as we enter the next century.' The editors, 'two of our most esteemed scholars,' offer 'the global citizen's guide to world culture, emphasizing the achievement of the non-Western world.' By way of justifying this emphasis the publisher points out that 'in the year 2000, half the world's people will be Asian, and one eighth will be African…. Of the world's twenty largest cities, none will be in Europe or the U.S.' These figures make it not unreasonable to argue that we are on the threshold of a new age; half a millennium of 'domination by Europe and people of European descent' is coming to an end.
Review, 3506 words
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