The Politics of the Global. By Himadeep Muppidi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004. 130p. $60.00 cloth, $20.00 paper.

Himadeep Muppidi has written a short, sophisticated, and provocative book that pushes its readers to think hard about global politics. His main hypothesis is that a thorough analysis of the “contestations over the social meaning of the global” (p. xvii) allows us to explore new “spaces and strategies for resisting the colonialization of the global” (p. xviii). In the end, however, the reader feels a little puzzled regarding the fruits of the exercise, including whether we have really gained a better understanding of global politics or whether we have been offered new possible ways for doing politics globally.