Book Description

"This book is a substantial contribution to the historical and interpretive sociology of the modern world. It is written as both a critique of the modernist paradigm, and as a reinterpretation of the contribution of Puerto Rico to the making of the modern world from a 'decentered' perspective."—Philip McMichael, author of Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective "Grosfoguel's grounding in the complexities of the Puerto Rican past and present provides us with original and generative scholarship that requires a new self-reflexive approach to knowledge and nationalism, to colonialism and capitalism, to citizenship and subjectivity. Within ethnic studies, Grosfoguel's approach is a crucial contribution to the progress of the field beyond ethnic particularism and toward the identification and understanding of the broader social forces that create social differences and give them their determinate social meanings."—George Lipsitz, author of American Studies in a Moment of Danger "Grosfoguel's book should become the definitive work on Puerto Rican migratory circuits."—Jose David Saldívar, author of Border Matters: Remapping American Cultural Studies "Grosfoguel discovers the relationship between the coloniality of power, the migratory movement to the Caribbean, the formation of new global cities like Miami, and tendencies toward a new geo-strategic configuration of a global scale."—Anibal Quijano, Professor of Sociology, Binghamton University "In this exciting look at Puerto Rico from a world-systems perspective, Grosfoguel examines colonialism with a fresh theoretical eye."—Immanuel Wallerstein, author of The Modern World-System