Creative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World's Cultures

"Argued neatly . . . cultural products that [we] think of as indigenous owe their existence to the cultural exchange brought about by trade." —Wall Street Journal

A Frenchman rents a Hollywood movie. A Thai schoolgirl mimics Madonna. Saddam Hussein chooses Frank Sinatra's "My Way" as the theme song for his fifty-fourth birthday. It is a commonplace that globalization is subverting local culture. But is it helping as much as it hurts?

In this strikingly original treatment of a fiercely debated...