Why the Rest Hates the West: Understanding the Roots of Global Rage

When I started reading this book sometime last year, I was freaked out. I put it down and stared at it from across the room for many months, knowing that I would have to finish the book, but also knowing that it would require that I pay attention.

I am prone to hyperbole, but this has significantly changed my worldview – and most likely my life. I’m learning to question my deepest assumptions about people and cultures – to remind myself, constantly, that the world I was born into is not the world that has always been, and that cultural evolution does not necessarily mean that we’re living in the best version of society.

What’s especially exciting is to see how the questions that this book taught me to start asking a year ago have led me to where I am now, and finally finishing the book helps me to realize how it all fits together. I’m a different person than I was a year ago, and this book has helped push me in that direction.