Al Qaeda and What it Means to be Modern

Fundamentalist terror movements are seen as reversions to medievalism, backlashes against a way of life that is the same everywhere. This view is a mirage. Thinking of modernity as a universal condition is a hindrance to understanding the present. Gray goes back to the origins of our notion of modernity in early nineteenth-century Positivism. Many economists imbibed their view that every society goes through the same developmental phases. Gray argues that September 11th destroyed the idea of globalisation as the sole pathway to modernity. He considers the role of the global free market, the pretensions of economics, the metamorphosis of war and the prospects of an American empire.