Displaying the distinctive combination of narration and philosophy
for which he is well known, this new book by Peter Sloterdijk
develops a radically new account of globalization at the beginning
of the twenty-first century. The author takes seriously the
historical and philosophical consequences of the notion of the
earth as a globe, arriving at the thesis that what is praised or
decried as globalization is actually the end phase in a process
that began with the first circumnavigation of the earth D and
that one can already discern elements of a new era beyond
globalization.



In the end phase of globalization, the world system completed its
development and, as a capitalist system, came to determine all
conditions of life. Sloterdijk takes the Crystal Palace in London,
the site of the first world exhibition in 1851, as the most
expressive metaphor for this situation. The palace demonstrates the
inevitable exclusivity of globalization as the construction of a
comfort structure D that is, the establishment and expansion
of a world interior whose boundaries are invisible, yet virtually
insurmountable from without, and which is inhabited by one and a
half billion winners of globalization; three times this number are
left standing outside the door.