Building on his pathbreaking work in comparative political theory, Fred Dallmayr has written a compelling, serious book that accomplishes two important and timely tasks. The first is theoretical and builds on impressive arguments about how to approach and understand cultures—or civilizations as he calls them—that are not only very different from one's own, but which also sometimes deny the validity of one's core values and dominant modes of argumentation. The second task comes in the form of concrete, practical case studies that show both the possibilities and richness of dialogue with different cultures. Taking us beyond an idea popular in many quarters that we are locked in a clash of civilizations, Dallmayr shows that differences can be respected and deep disagreements addressed in order to promote global justice.

The challenge Dallmayr sets for himself is to move beyond a binary understanding of cross-cultural dialogue. At one pole is the claim that very different civilizations are so distinct that it is really impossible for interlocutors to understand one another except in the most banal way. If this pole carries the day, we cannot learn from different civilizations except for superficialities because no matter how hard we try, we will never fathom the depths of alien modes of thinking. At the other pole is tied the claim that in spite of the many differences that characterize distinct cultures, there is a host of important commonalities that enable well-intentioned people from each civilization to understand one another without difficulty.

Dallmayr refuses to accept the deep fatalism implicit in the former approach or the easy optimism of the latter. Rather than borrowing a bit from each perspective, he develops an alternative reading of texts that is particularly indebted to Hans-Georg Gadamer as well as Martin Heidegger, Charles Taylor, and Jüurgen Habermas. Along the way, he also reaches into the Western canon, particularly to Aristotle.

For dialogue to even begin, the parties must approach each other and their respective positions with “some kind of equality among partners … an equality of trust and respect” (p. 2). Dallmayr asks conversationalists to avoid acting as if they were omniscient; rather, we are invited to follow Michael Oakeshott's idea of a conversation, which requires that the obstacles constructed by unequal allocations of power are overcome. Dallmayr then reaches for Habermas's discourse theory, albeit with several modifications of the theory. An enlarged and generous view of “communicative rationality” promises, Dallmayr insists, a thick conversation that respects vernacular idioms, practices, and beliefs.

Even though an open disposition is required for dialogue, Dallmayr recognizes that we unavoidably bring our own pre-judgments into any serious conversation, and rather than deny them, he wants us to acknowledge them. In doing so, he asks us to see the fluidity, ambiguity, and tensions in our own prejudgments. He turns to Gadamer to elaborate the position that even between seemingly antagonistic understandings, as can occur between the secular and the sacred, between “Athens” and “Jerusalem,” there are both tensions as well as mutually supportive relationships. Although each understanding remains distinct, each adds to the other, pointing to both rupture and continuity. For Dallmayr, Gadamer's dialogue is “radically noninstrumental” and his hermeneutics “always … hovers in the ‘in-between’: between self and others, familiarity and strangeness, presence and absence” (p. 27). The horizon that emerges enables us to move beyond the here and now, not to deny the familiar or assimilate the strange but to explore.

In his discussion of “exemplary voices,” Dallmayr reaches for three from the Islamic world and three from South Asia. He convincingly shows that there is more than one Islam, and that militant expressions of fundamentalism capture just one facet of this civilization. Particularly interested in the many efforts to address the claims of faith, politics, and reason in Islam, Dallmayr reaches for Averroeüs, Goethe's surprising and admiring encounter with the Persian poet Hafiz of Shiraz, and the democratic theorizing of Abdolkarim Soroush. Dallmayr begins his analysis of South Asian thinkers with Raimon Panikkar's reinterpretation of secularism and then turns to D. P. Chattopadhyaya's discussion of freedom and Gandhi's arguments on behalf of self-rule.

The ideas of tension, ambiguity, and multiple meanings that Dallmayr finds in such Western writers as Gadamer also appear in many of the writers he explores in these chapters. We see this in Dallmayr's helpful discussion of Averroeüs about the relationship of religion and philosophy. Each has important matters to teach us even as they involve very different ways of grasping knowledge. Even in the realms of reason and faith, there are different legitimate layers of meaning, and Dallmayr reads Averroeüs as teaching that there is more than one legitimate way to interpret the Qur'an and that no particular epistemological or interpretive claim trumps the rest.

These writers problematize much that seems settled in the West and challenge the view that what is happening in the world is the unfolding of the laws of reason and progress and the logic of the market, moves that they see as fatalistic, deterministic, and dangerous. This is seen in Dallmayr's sensitive treatment of Gandhi, who embraces tradition while promoting his own views of modernity that emphasize self-governance, and who seeks to spiritualize India through service to the least-advantaged members of society at the same time he calls for a respect for religious diversity and a democratic, secular state.

Although Dallmayr writes sensitively about the asymmetries of power, economic resources, and knowledge of a certain sort between the West and non-West, he seems at times to substitute dialogue for power. The problem, however, is that power, particularly recently, has been hidden in much politics, operating under the claims of globalization or problem solving or bargaining. Dallmayr does acknowledge that power is important in his discussion of the asymmetries of global power. Because this is so, power and its many expressions need to be seen for what they are: means to control others. This is true not only of political power but also of concentrated wealth and specialized modes of knowledge. One of the central tasks of a dialogue among civilizations is to expose and challenge these many asymmetries in the world. Advocates of a globalizing economy often tell themselves and others that they act out of historical necessity, and the kind of dialogue Dallmayr proposes helps to expose their pretensions about neutrality and the power they deploy but often disguise.

The author's goal for a dialogue among civilizations is to move future “global civil life” to “a commitment to social justice and the rule of law and a willingness to shoulder the sobering demands of civic prudence” (p. 30). The content of social justice and law cannot be, for Dallmayr, one that is imposed by empire or decreed by orientalist understandings of the world. Rather, his social justice and rule of law draws from an appreciation that any civilization is partial and has something to learn from other civilizations. Throughout this impressive work, Dallmayr shows himself a master of the diverse materials he employs and makes Dialogue Among Civilizations a statement of multidisciplinary scholarship at its best, as well as a commanding argument to explore beyond our own intellectual and moral worlds.