Arguing that ethnicity and multiculturalism are essential for understanding globalization, Jan Nederveen Pieterse offers one of the first sustained treatments of the reach of these key forces beyond a limited national context. His groundbreaking book adopts a kaleidoscopic and comparative-historical perspective that intertwines strands of social science and western and non-western research as a strategy to overcome the disciplinary and regional fragmentation of most discussions. Moving beyond worn notions of ethnicity and multiculturalism, Nederveen Pieterse proposes ethnicities and global multiculture as alternative, wide-angle perspectives on cultural diversity. Global multiculture, he convincingly demonstrates, offers a fresh account of cultural dynamics amid accelerated globalization.