Bücher von Fred Dallmayr

Challenges the ""desert character"" of modern culture. Political and economic corruption, incessant warmongering, spoliation of natural resources, and, above all, mindless consumerism and greedy self-satisfaction are all symptoms of what Fred Dallmayr contends is an expanding wasteland or desert where everything creative and nourishing decays and withers.

Small Wonder presents the dangers of the "underside of modernity": the unleashing of unlimited lust for (global) power and wealth. Relying on leading critical intellectuals, Dallmayr offers a critique of the self-deceptions of our age, pleading in favor of the cultivation of the "small wonder" of everyday life.

In an age marked by global hegemony and festering civilization clashes, this text charts a path toward a cosmopolitan democracy respectful of local differences. The main emphasis of the study is on linkages or meditation, arranged along the two axes of "local-global" and "self-other" relations.

16th-century humanist Erasmus allows ""Peace"" to speak as a plaintiff, protesting her shabby treatment at the hands of humankind and our ever-ready inclination to launch wars. Against this lure of warfare, Erasmus pits the higher task of peace-building, which can only succeed through the cultivation of justice and respect for all human life.