Book excerpt: `Couze Venn's book makes an outstanding contribution to our understanding of postcolonial theory and its engagement with significant changes within the contemporary world. Couze Venn forces us to rethink the very parameters of the post-colonial and suggests a new political economy for post-modern times. This critical engagement opens up the possibility to reimagine the world from its current narrow European strictures to a world full of alternative possibilities and modernities. Venn's book adds a new dimension to the scholarly literature on postcolonial studies with the suggestion that such a rethinking is transmodern - properly postcolonial and postoccidental. As such, it is an extended meditation and development of his Occidentalism. This is a timely and ground breaking book that contributes to a much needed reconceptualisation of the postcolony' - Professor Pal Ahluwalia, Goldsmiths College, University of London What is postcolonial studies? What are its achievements, strengths and weaknesses? This ground breaking book offers an essential guide to one of the most important issues of our time, with special emphasis on neo-liberalism within world poverty and the `third world'. It clarifies: · the territory of postcolonial studies; · how identity and postcolonialism relate; · the ties between postcolonialism and Modernity; · new perspectives in the light of recent geo-political events; · potential future developments in the subject. Lucid, comprehensive and accessible the book offers students and scholars a one-stop guide to one of the most important issues of our time.