In a sense, globalization began as a cultural phenomenon. The simultaneous availability of information everywhere on the globe was the seed of world-wide developments economically and politically. Strangely perhaps, the economic and political consequences of globalization are not only clearly in evidence but have also been widely studied, whereas few have focused on the cultural consequences of what was originally a cultural phenomenon. The Cultures and Globalization Series fills this gap, and for that reason alone it is most welcome.

The financial and general economic consequences of globalization have become a part of our lives, even if they are variegated and in no sense simple. The political consequences of globalization are with us every day, not least through the threat of the world-wide interconnections of terrorism. By contrast, the cultural consequences of globalization are more complex and less visible. Nor are they a set of developments pointing in one direction only. Globalization has now become widely recognized, that is to say the simultaneous extension of relevant cultural spaces and growing significance of more immediate, locally limited sources of cultural identity.

The task of documenting the relations of culture and globalization is thus formidable. It is appropriate that the Series editors, Helmut Anheier and Yudhishthir Raj Isar, should have enlisted the support of a large number of authors and advisers to accomplish the task. Professor Anheier himself is no stranger to complexity, as his work on civil society in a variety of countries shows. Professor Isar's background in international cultural policy is equally important to the project's objectives. Thus the project leaders and the authors from diverse parts of the globe guarantee that this Series will be about diversity yet usable in many if not all parts of the world.

Such wide utility is strengthened by a methodological feature. The end of ideology has often been stated when in fact ideological politics had a stubborn way of returning. Globalization might be assumed to have consigned ideology finally to the rubbish dumps of history. Yet again we are faced with what has been called, market fundamentalism on the one hand, and with sometimes violent anti-globalization movements on the other. Fortunately there is also the new trend of evidence-based politics, and one may hope that it will prevail. This volume is nothing if not evidence-based. It provides a considerable amount of evidence otherwise unavailable or only accessible in disparate sources. Not the least merit of this Series is that it helps find out what is actually happening. There are valuable beginnings of the development of indices of the cultural consequences of globalization. In this way, the volume will contribute to making full use of the opportunities of globalization while not ignoring its threats.