Short description
Drawing on examples from around the world, the author describes the potential dangers of globalization and the exportation of free-market democracy, arguing that they do not spread wealth evenly through a society but instead produce a class of wealthy plutocrats, as well as increased ethnic conflict, violence, ethnonationalism, and other potentiall
Review
Provocative, evocative, nuanced, and highly readable. . . . Amy Chua deserves our gratitude. -- The Washington Post
Fascinating and disturbing . . . with an authority born of rigorous research. -- BusinessWeek
World on Fire deserves to be widely read. It is a welcome antidote to the recycled mantras of the market-cheering right and the tired rhetoric of the anti-globalization left. -- The American Prospect
Superb. . . . Encourages us to confront the world as it is, and our actual place in it, with a humane and intellectually formidable imagination. -- The New York Observer
A riveting and original book that challenges key tenets of American political faith. -- The Baltimore Sun
This hard-hitting book should be read by everyone who still imagines that free markets can solve all the world's ills. Chua's work is provocative, creative, and important; it turns conventional wisdom on its head, and no one interested in globalization can afford to ignore it. --Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America
Provocative. . . . Shocking. . . . It should make Americans think twice about exporting their political culture wholesale without a thought of who dislikes whom. -- Seattle Times
[ World on Fire ] makes for compelling reading and sounds a sobering warning that should be heeded by all supporters and critics of globalization. -- Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
A profound book, written in plain English, and challenging the very foundations of some glib--and dangerous--assumptions behind American foreign policy. This book should be read in the highest circles of decision-making, as well as by all those who like toconsider themselves 'thinking people.' It should provoke some re-thinking--and, for some, really thinking for the first time. --Thomas Sowell, Hoover Institution, and author of Ethnic America, Race and Culture
A brilliant, groundbreaking assault on the prevailing wisdom that the American political and economic model is a one-stop solution to the world's woes. -- Elle
Grim and thoughtful. . . . A clear-headed incisive diagnosis of the many ethnic ills of the globalizing era. -- Mother Jones
Clear and persuasive. . . . Chua is a careful, precise writer. -- Salon
Chua's book is a lucid, powerfully argued, and important contribution to the debate over the forces and factors shaping the twenty-first century world. --Strobe Talbott, President, The Brookings Institution, and author of The Age of Terror: America and the World After September 11
A cogent analysis...convincingly reason[ed]. -- The Boston Herald
Chua offers a fundamentally new perspective on how to help sustain globalization by spreading its benefits while curbing its most destructive aspects. . . . Compelling. -- The Tampa Tribune
Remarkably illuminating. . . . I cannot think of another work over the past couple of decades that reveals more about the disturbing persistence internationally of racial and ethnic conflicts. --Randall Kennedy, author of Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word
Drawing on examples from Burma to Bolivia, Chua paints a nuanced picture of ethnic and national fault lines. . . . [She] fleshes out the idea that globalization is not a magical elixir for developing nations. -- Newsweek
A barrage of examples supports Chua's thesis, eachdescribed with careful consideration of the different circumstances of different nations. . . . [T]old with a dramatic flair. . . - The Weekly Standard
The greatest tribute to any book is the conviction upon closing it that the senseless finally makes sense. That's the feeling left by Amy Chua's World on Fire. -- The Washington Post