This major collection of essays, a sequel to Modernity at Large and Fear of Small Numbers, is the product of ten years' research and writing, constituting an important contribution to globalization studies. Appadurai takes a broad analytical look at the genealogies of the present era of globalization through essays on violence, commodification, nationalism, terror and materiality.
Alongside a discussion of these wider debates, Appadurai situates India at the heart of his work, offering writing based on firsthand research among urban slum dwellers in Mumbai, in which he examines their struggle to achieve equity, recognition and self-governance in conditions of extreme inequality.
Finally, in his work on design, planning, finance and poverty, Appadurai embraces the "politics of hope" and lays the foundations for a revitalized, and urgent, anthropology of the future.