In the World Interior of Capital

Displaying the distinctive combination of narration and philosophyfor which he is well known, this new book by Peter Sloterdijkdevelops a radically new account of globalization at the beginningof the twenty-first century. The author takes seriously thehistorical and philosophical consequences of the notion of theearth as a globe, arriving at the thesis that what is praised ordecried as globalization is actually the end phase in a processthat began with the first circumnavigation of the earth D andthat one can already discern elements of a new era beyondglobalization. In the end phase of globalization, the world system completed itsdevelopment and, as a capitalist system, came to determine allconditions of life. Sloterdijk takes the Crystal Palace in London,the site of the first world exhibition in 1851, as the mostexpressive metaphor for this situation. The palace demonstrates theinevitable exclusivity of globalization as the construction of acomfort structure D that is, the establishment and expansionof a world interior whose boundaries are invisible, yet virtuallyinsurmountable from without, and which is inhabited by one and ahalf billion winners of globalization; three times this number areleft standing outside the door.