Genocide and community violence, the loss of ethical landmarks and social "order," lack of confidence in the viability of the prevailing system and economic forces: the 20th century has painfully challenged all our certainties concerning society, history, and humankind. This volume offers reflections on the likely nature of the values of the 21st century and addresses questions such as whether aesthetics will prevail over ethics, whether the third industrial revolution and its forms of globalization will shatter culture as we know it, hasten the decline of thousands of languages, or give rise to new forms of racism or "genism."

This volume, the second anthology originating from UNESCO’s "Twenty-first Century Dialogues," brings together about fifty scientists and researchers from the four corners of the world to ponder the future of values and humanity.

Contributors include: Arjun Appadurai, Jean Baudrillard, Peter Sloterdikjk, Paul Ricoeur, Julia Kristeva, Paul Kennedy, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Delors, Edward O. Wilson, Nadine Gordimer, Achille Mbembe, Adalbert Barreto, Trinh Xuan Thuan.