Some time back, I blogged about Tyler Cowen's Creative Destruction: How Globalization Is Changing the World's Cultures, lamenting that there didn't seem to be any free on-line summary. The Chronicle of Higher Education has now generously provided one. Nominally, of course, it's an original essay by one Philippe Legrain, but since it's entirely cribbed from Cowen's book, one presumes that some sub-titular phrase like "An Exposition" got lost in the editorial shuffle.
(There is a curious literal-mindedness in both Legrain's epitome and Cowen's original, whereby they think they can refute fears of Americanization by pointing to the spread of anime, yoga and the tango. I'd have thought it was obvious that these fears were really fears of becoming a mono-culture, where every place is like ever other place. This is how people see America, and if that did happen, it's a good bet that the largest single contributor to the mono-culture would be America. No number of sushi bars in Samarkand are going to quiet these fears; quite the contrary.)