The Idea of the West: Culture, Politics and History - Softcover

Bonnett, Alastair

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1403900353 ISBN 13: 9781403900357

Publisher: Red Globe Press, 2004

Synopsis

This book provides a clear, topical and wide-ranging introduction to the idea of "the West." It engages with both Western and non-Western representations and demonstrates that "the West" is not merely a Western idea, but something that many people around the world have long been creating, stereotyping and deploying. Bonnett offers an accessible but provocative portrait of the ambiguities and diverse connotations of "the West," teasing out questions of race, politics and power from the late nineteenth-century to the present day.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

The West is on everyone's lips: it is defended, celebrated, hated. But how and why did it emerge? And whose idea is it? This book is about representations of the West. Drawing on sources from across the world - from Russia to Japan, Iran to Britain - it argues that the West is not merely a Western idea but something that many people around the world have long been creating and stereotyping. The Idea of the West looks at how the great political and ethnic forces of the last century defined themselves in relation to the West, addresses how Soviet communism, 'Asian spirituality', 'Asian values' and radical Islamism used and deployed images of the West. Both topical and wide-ranging, it offers an accessible but provocative portrait of a fascinating subject and it charts the complex relationship between whiteness and the West.

About the Author:

Alastair Bonnett is Reader in Social Geography at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

About this edition

• Publisher: Red Globe Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1403900353
• ISBN 13: 9781403900357
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 201