HISHAM M. NAZER, Power of a Third Kind: The Western Attempt to Colonize the Global Village (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1999). Pp. 176.

Abstract

Hisham Nazer, chairman of the Nazer Group of Saudi Arabia, former minister of planning, former minister of petroleum, and chairman of Saudi Aramco, has written a powerful and provocative book. In this highly original tour de force, Nazer analyzes the deleterious effects of the technological globalization of information on the cultural integrity of Third World nations and sets forth a strategy of resistance for the developing world. The work is directed at intellectuals in these countries, whom he challenges to “not just exist in this world; [but to] create our own world.” Rejecting the narrow definition of culture as “object-focused” acts and artifacts, he argues that culture should be understood as “the collective and dynamically active perspectives of living individuals.”