"'Why Do People Hate America?' contains valuable information and insights that we should know, over here, for our own good, and the world's."
— Noam Chomsky

"'Why Do People Hate America?' is a welcome antidote to the self-serving drivel that passes for sophisticated analysis in much of U.S. media and mainstream commentary. I strongly recommend this provocative book to anyone concerned with the United States and its role in the world."
— Robert W. McChesney
Author, >'Our Media, Not Theirs'

"For a most considered view and analysis that seeks to reduce that hate while showing its true causes, have a look at Ziaudin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies's new book 'Why Do People Hate America?'. It's all there in tragic black and white, with the political context missing in most surveys and news reports."
— Danny Schechter
Executive Editor, Mediachannel.org

This is just some of the advance praise for "WHY DO PEOPLE HATE AMERICA?", a phrase that one hears almost daily in America today. In their important new book (The Disinformation Company; 240 pp, ISBN 0-9713942-5-3, $22.95 Hardcover, $12.95 Trade Paper, U.S. pub date March 2003), Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies dissect this question and get to the root of the all too complicated answer. An answer that is not a straightforward counterblast to the hatred expressed for America but rather a look at the consequences of interaction in a world in which gross disparities of power, wealth, freedom, and opportunity must be factored into each and every situation.

Already an international bestseller, "Why Do People Hate America?" doesn't stop there but rather examines, discusses and debates many topics, including:

• The indiscriminate use of the term 'America' to cover many different aspects of U.S. influence and operation around the world and how it is a reflection of the 'hamburger syndrome'.

• The way in which the brand called 'America' has been sold to the rest of the world and the consequences of the globalization of American culture on developing countries are examined via analysis of: American foreign and economic policies; U.S. treatment of the rest of the world at the United Nations; American control of global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization; and U.S. relationship with developing countries over the last five decades.

• Why are presumptions of innocence and self-righteousness so central to American self-image? The authors examine America's image of itself in its historic narratives and founding myths. They argue that definitions are relational terms, in that everyone's image of self includes, and in part depends on, their view of other people.

• How the power of the American media works to keep Americans closed to experiences and ideas from the rest of the world and thereby increases the insularity, self-absorption and ignorance that are the overriding problems the rest of the world has with America.

• How the foreign policy of the U.S. government, backed by its military strength, has unprecedented global influence now that the United States is the world's only superpower – its first 'hyperpower'.

• The problem of 'knowledgeable ignorance': defined as knowing people, ideas, civilizations, religions, histories as something they are not – and could not possibly be - and maintaining these ideas even when the means exist to know differently.

• The American construction of the 'axis of evil' is a form of grand absolutism reflecting America as a hostile, inimical perversion, endemic and operating within other nations all around the globe.

The authors of "Why Do People Hate America?" know that the one of the hardest things for people to do is examine oneself and admit one's own problems. The same holds true for the U.S., as a nation, creating much frustration within the country and infuriation, antipathy, hostility and even hatred beyond the bounds of America. If America refuses to reflect upon its history, its uses and abuses of power and wealth at home and abroad, the consequences of its lifestyle and abundance, the relations between quality of life and values, the relation between ideals and practical application of those ideals to all of its people, then what chance has the rest of the world of engaging America in reasoned discussion?

First published in the U.K., the book was described as "required reading" by the Independent and as "original and thought provoking" by the New Statesman, while the Times Higher Education Supplement found it to be "packed with tightly argued points."

Ziauddin Sardar is a writer, broadcaster and cultural critic. His numerous books include The A to Z of Postmodern Life (2002); Orientalism (1999) and Postmodernism and the Other (1998). He has also written a series of highly successful illustrated guides in the "Introducing" series, including Islam, Mathematics, Chaos, Media Studies, Science, and the international bestseller, Cultural Studies. He is widely known for his regular contributions to the New Statesman and national and international newspapers and magazines.

Merryl Wyn Davies is a writer and anthropologist. A former television producer for BBC and the author of a number of books, including the highly-acclaimed Knowing One Another: Shaping an Islamic Anthropology (1998), and the co-author of Distorted Imagination: Lessons from the Rushdie Affair (1990) and Barbaric Others: A Manifesto on Western Racism (1993). Her most recent books are Darwin and Fundamentalism (2000) and Introducing Anthropology (2002).

The views expressed above represent the writer and not necessarily those of The Disinformation Company Ltd.