| Fire on the Rim: The Cultural Dynamics of East/West Power Politics Contributor(s): Thornton, William H. (Author), Turner, Bryan (Foreword by) |
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ISBN: 0742517063 ISBN-13: 9780742517066 Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers OUR PRICE: $144.40 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: July 2002 Annotation: Fire on the Rim combines an idealist's call for social justice, cultural difference, and environmental sustainability with a realist's recognition of the continuing need for balance of power security relations around the Pacific Rim. Although this melding of idealist and realist elements is sure to meet opposition on the Right and Left alike, the author's call for moral realism is a vital step toward an Asia policy fit for the twenty-first century. Visit our website for sample chapters! |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Ethnic Studies - General - History | Asia - General |
| Dewey: 950.42 |
| LCCN: 2002017607 |
| Series: Pacific Formations: Global Relations in Asian and Pacific Pe |
| Physical Information: 0.73" H x 5.84" W x 9.32" (0.94 lbs) 224 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1950-1999 - Chronological Period - 21st Century - Cultural Region - Asian |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Beginning where Huntington's Clash of Civilizations ends, Fire on the Rim is a call to action, not fatalism; to cultural dialogue, not militancy. However, in rejecting the entrenched pessimism of cultural realists such as Huntington and Kaplan, William Thornton is equally careful to avoid the teleological optimism of a Francis Fukuyama, Thomas Friedman, or even an Anthony Giddens. He argues that the United States is now paying, in terms of "blowback," a long-term price for short-term Cold War and subsequent globalist strategies--mistakes that were chosen, not fated. Yet mending these errors will require nothing less than a paradigm shift in geopolitical (post-New World Order) and geoeconomic (post-neoliberal) thought. Fire instantiates this shift within the specific context of the Pacific Rim. In defiance of ideological convention, it combines a call for social justice, cultural difference, and environmental sustainability with a sober recognition of the need for continued balance of power geopolitics, soft and hard. The author's iconoclastic melding of idealist and realist elements will provoke the Right and Left alike, but his call for moral realism is a vital step toward an Asia policy fit for the twenty-first century. |