The Idea of the West - Culture, Politics and History

What is the West? Whose idea is it? And why is it at the centre of Political and cultural debate across the globe? This book provides the first truly international study of the idea of the West. Drawing on sources from Russia to Japan, Iran to Britain, it shows how and why the West has been created and stereotyped.

The Idea of the West explains how the great political and ethnic forces of the twentieth century defined themselves in relation to the West. Thus, in a series of provocative yet accessible studies, it shows that the history of racial whiteness, Soviet communism, 'Asian spirituality', 'Asian values' and radical Islamism are all inseparable from the ideologies of occidentalism. Both topical and wide-ranging, The Idea of the West offers a fascinating and highly readable account of one of the central concepts of our era.