Author of Jihad vs. McWorld talks at RIT, Oct. 25

With the world’s attention focused on the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network, experts are in high demand to explain the zealous hatred of the United States associated with Islamic fundamentalism.

In his international best seller, Jihad vs. McWorld, renowned author, scholar and political consultant Benjamin Barber was one of the first to explain how the expansion of Western culture and free market policies would produce a "tribalistic" backlash by traditional societies against Western countries in general and the United States in particular.

In a timely lecture at Rochester Institute of Technology, Barber will present "Global Democracy, Global Anarchy or Global Corporatism?" at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 25, in Webb Auditorium of the James E. Booth Building. He will speak at RIT as part of the 2001-02 Caroline Werner Gannett Lecture Series, which focuses on globalization, human rights and citizenship.

RIT’s Gannett Professor and lecture series director Robert Manning says, "Barber’s path-breaking book, Jihad vs. McWorld, lucidly describes how Western cultural expansion—including democratic political institutions—fuels the popular support of Islamic fundamentalism and its ideological opposition to the United States."

Barber’s most recent book, The Truth of Power: The Intellectual Affairs in the Clinton White House, is based on his experience as a key advisor to the Clinton-Gore administrations. He is the author of 15 books, including A Passion for Democracy, and co-author of the CBS/PBS 10-part series, The Struggle for Democracy. Barber is the Carrol Kekst Professor of Civil Society at the University of Maryland at College Park.

The talk will be interpreted for the deaf. Call 475-2057 for more information or log onto www.rit.edu/gannettseries.

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Note: About the lecture series: RIT’s College of Liberal Arts began the Gannett Lecture Series in the mid 1970s in two-year thematic blocks, which have included environmental, citizenship, Constitutional and millennial themes. The series coordinates with the university’s Senior Seminar, requiring all RIT seniors to attend. For Robert Manning’s tenure as series director, the lectures will focus on globalization, human rights and citizenship.


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