""In the age of globalization we are no longer home alone. Migration brings other worlds into our own just as the global reach of the media transmits our world into the hearts and minds of others. Often incommensurate values are crammed together in the same public square. Increasingly we all today live in the kind of 'edge cultures' we used to see only on the frontiers of civilizations in places like Hong Kong or Istanbul. The resulting frictions and fusions are shaping the soul of the coming world order. I can think of no other project with the ambitious scope of defining this emergent reality than The Cultures and Globalization project. I can think of no more capable minds than Raj Isar and Helmut Anheier who can pull it off."" - Nathan Gardels, Editor-in-Chief, NPQ, Global Services, Los Angeles Times Syndicate/Tribune Media ""This series represents an innovative approach to the central issues of globalization, that phenomenon of such undefined contours."" - Lupwishi Mbuyumba, Director of the Observatory of Cultural Policies in Africa The world's cultures and their forms of creation, presentation, and preservation are deeply affected by globalization in ways that are inadequately documented and understood. The Cultures and Globalization Series is designed to fill this void in our knowledge. Analyzing the relationship between globalization and cultures is the aim of the Series. In each volume, leading experts as well as young scholars will track cultural trends connected to globalization throughout the world, covering issues ranging from the role of cultural difference in politics and governance to the evolution of the cultural economy and the changing patterns of creativity and artistic expression. Each volume will also include an innovative presentation of newly developed 'indicator suites' on cultures and globalization that will be presented in a user-friendly form with a high graphics content to facilitate accessibility and understanding Like so many phenomena linked to globalization, conflicts over and within the cultural realms crystallize great anxieties and illusions, through misplaced assumptions, inadequate concepts, unwarranted simplifications and instrumental readings. The aim here is to marshal evidence from different disciplines and perspectives about the culture, conflict and globalization relationships in conceptually sensitive ways.
Helmut K. Anheier, PhD, is President and Dean at the Hertie School of Governance, and holds a chair of sociology at Heidelberg University. He received his PhD from Yale University in 1986, was a senior researcher at John Hopkins School of Public Policy, Professor of Public Policy and Social Welfare at UCLA′s Luskin School of Public Affairs, and Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics. Professor Anheier founded and directed the Centre for Civil Society at LSE, the Center for Civil Society at UCLA, and the Center for Social Investment at Heidelberg. Before embarking on an academic career, he served as social affairs officer to the United Nations.
He is author of over 400 publications, and won various international prizes and recognitions for his scholarship. Amongst his recent book publications are Nonprofit Organizations - Theory, Management, Policy (London: Routledge, 2014), A Versatile American Institution: The Changing Ideals and Realities of Philanthropic Foundations with David Hammack (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2013) and The Global Studies Encyclopedia with Mark Juergensmeyer (5 vols, Sage, 2012). He is the principal academic lead of the Hertie School´s annual Governance Report (Oxford University Press, 2013-), and currently working on projects relating to indicator research, social innovation, and success and failure in philanthropy.
Yudhishthir Raj Isar is an independent analyst, advisor and public speaker who straddles different worlds of cultural theory, experience and practice. He is Professor of Cultural Policy Studies at The American University of Paris and Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Culture and Society, University of Western Sydney. He has also been maître de conference at Sciences Po, Paris. Professor Isar is co-editor of the Cultures and Globalization Series (SAGE). He is a trustee of civil society cultural organisations and consultant to international organisations and foundations and Past President of Culture Action Europe. Earlier, at UNESCO, where he served from 1973 to 2002, he was notably Executive Secretary of the World Commission on Culture and Development and Director of the International Fund for the Promotion of Culture.
