The Crisis of Global Modernity
Asian Traditions and a Sustainable Future

Drawing on historical sociology, transnational histories and Asian traditions, Duara seeks answers to the pressing global issue of environmental sustainability.

Prasenjit Duara (Author)

9781107442856, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 December 2014

340 pages
23.6 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.5 kg

'… a questing, ambitious and occasionally polemical work that charts his [Duara's] search for an Asian-inspired new ecological consciousness. … By presenting his inspiring new vision of an evolving pan-Asian civic-minded solidarity, Duara, with all his usual elegance and erudition, enables us to share in that hope.' Roy Starrs, Journal of World History

In this major new study, Prasenjit Duara expands his influential theoretical framework to present circulatory, transnational histories as an alternative to nationalist history. Duara argues that the present day is defined by the intersection of three global changes: the rise of non-western powers, the crisis of environmental sustainability and the loss of authoritative sources of what he terms transcendence - the ideals, principles and ethics once found in religions or political ideologies. The physical salvation of the world is becoming - and must become - the transcendent goal of our times, but this goal must transcend national sovereignty if it is to succeed. Duara suggests that a viable foundation for sustainability might be found in the traditions of Asia, which offer different ways of understanding the relationship between the personal, ecological and universal. These traditions must be understood through the ways they have circulated and converged with contemporary developments.

Introduction
1. Sustainability and the crisis of transcendence
2. Circulatory and competitive histories
3. The historical logics of global modernity
4. Dialogical and radical transcendence
5. Dialogical transcendence and secular nationalism in the Sinosphere
6. The traffic between secularism and transcendence
7. Regions of circulation and networks of sustainability in Asia
8. Conclusion and epilogue: of reason and hope
Index.

Subject Areas: Sociology [JHB], Buddhism [HRE], Asian history [HBJF], General & world history [HBG]