The kamikazes who attacked Washington and New York on September 11, 2001, destroyed the dominant Western myth that as societies modernize, they will look more and more alike and share the same values, and that there is only one path to modernity.

Al-Qaeda, also a product of modernity and globalization, will not be the last group to use the products of the modern world to serve its own goals.

Gray dismantles the myth that human values and beliefs can be reshaped by science and the progress of knowledge. He describes with biting irony the rise of positivists, this sect that deified science and technology, and examines the various attempts to reshape humanity, from the totalitarianism of Bolshevism and Nazism to the modern radical Islam's avant-garde experiments and the totalitarian fantasies of the prophets of globalization.

He clearly analyzes the real sources of conflicts in the world, scathingly refers to American power and its illusions, and describes the ways in which the cultures of peoples will resist the attempts to disrupt them by the missionaries of the global free market.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]