World on fire
Subtitle: how exporting free market democracy breeds ethnic hatred and global instability
By: Amy Chua.
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 2003
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 240
First sentence: In Burma, tattoos are traditionally used to protect against snakebite.
Description: "Examining the actual impact of economic globalization in every region of the world, from Africa and Asia to Russia and Latin America, Chua exposes an unexpected reality. In every one of these regions, free markets have concentrated disproportionate, often spectacular wealth in the hands of a resented ethnic minority." "Adding democracy to this volatile mix unleashes suppressed ethnic hatreds and brings to power ethno nationalist governments that pursue aggressive policies of confiscation and revenge. Chua also shows how individual countries may be viewed as market-dominant minorities at the regional or global level, a fact that may help to explain the Arab-Israeli conflict and the rising tide of anti-American sentiment around the world. America today has become the world's leading market-dominant minority, enjoying wealth and economic power wildly disproportionate to our numbers. This, perhaps more than anything else, accounts for the visceral hatred of Americans that we have seen expressed in recent acts of terrorism." "Chua warns that, far from making the world a better and safer place, democracy and capitalism - at least in the raw, unrestrained form in which they are currently being exported - are intensifying ethnic resentment and global violence, with potentially catastrophic results."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction : globalization and ethnic hatred; title: Rubies and rice paddies : Chinese minority dominance in Southeast Asia; title: Llama fetuses, latifundia, and la blue chip numero uno : "white" wealth in Latin America; title: The seventh oligarch : the Jewish billionaires of post-communist Russia; title: The "Ibo of Cameroon" : market-dominant minorities in Africa; title: Backlash against markets : ethnically targeted seizures and nationalizations; title: Backlash against democracy : crony capitalism and minority rule; title: Backlash against market-dominant minorities : expulsions and genocide; title: Mixing blood : assimilation, globalization, and the case of Thailand; title: The underside of Western free market democracy : from Jim Crow to the Holocaust; title: The Middle Eastern cauldron : Israeli Jews as a regional market-dominant minority; title: Why they hate us : America as a global market-dominant minority; title: The future of free market democracy.