Amin (director of the United Nations research institute, UNITAR, located in Senegal) critiques capitalist modernity as being characterized by Eurocentrism, a culturalist claim that internalizes the inequality and asymmetry inherent in the global spread of capitalism. Eurocentric culturalism argues that changes in cultural characteristics are what give rise to modernity (see Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic for example), whereas Amin argues precisely the opposite: that cultural change is "more the product of the necessities of the social transformation than their cause." He contends that modernity must be seen as an incomplete project that requires a reinvention of universal values, which in turn implies the economic, social, and political reconstruction of all of the world's societies. For this second edition, he has added a new preface and introduction and removed a chapter dealing with issues that were more pertinent twenty years ago. Annotation 2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
