Terrorism - Barber's Jihad vs. McWorld

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Barber's Jihad vs. McWorld

The entire history of humankind has been filled with rapid change. On the timetable that began with the creation of the earth and is still continuing today, humans have rose to domination very quickly. A greater intelligence quickly led to improved survival techniques, which led to an exponentially increasing population. More people led to a need for more space which, combined with increasing technology, led to expansion around the globe and the colonization of newly discovered regions, sometimes at the expense of other humans. Recent struggles for identity in the midst of a planet filled with a great diversity of people has led to the birth of new nations and the terrorization of others.

Jihad vs. McWorld is, quite simply, an attempt to explain the surroundings that we are all living in as citizens of the world. Using his own observations as well as plenty of resources from the media, Benjamin Barber paints a portrait of a grim world. He describes McWorld and Jihad as two broad ways our world is stripping us of individualism, and in doing so, attempts to shine a light on what is happening so that we the people will be blind no more. According to Barber, our own beloved world is holding us hostage without us knowing it; Jihad vs. McWorld shows us our captors in vivid detail.

Typical Americans are usually blind to nationalist struggles that involve different peoples in a different continent. However, recently, the effects of Jihad have been near to all Americans due to the tragedy of the World Trade Center. Although these events happened after Jihad vs. McWorld, the different Jihad-related struggles Barber describes allude to many elements of the terrorism that America is currently facing. Americans are not accustomed to dealing directly with these issues; Jihad vs. McWorld is very helpful in providing backgound to this and possibly any future events.

On the other hand, McWorld is something that all Americans are aware of. Barber consistently and accurately makes the point that McWorld is inherently American. McWorld is, in a few words, the strive of capitalism and corporations to spread their products to all people, maximizing profit. This concept is not new to Americans; America was founded on free trade and capitalism. In the twentieth century, many new products were created that, with the help of technology, quickly spread throughout America.

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