Curriculum settings, the relationship among language, culture, and discourse, and the change in the ownership of English are the main topics addressed in this volume. Holliday discusses social and political issues in English language education in diverse international locations. He focuses on the injustices created by the desire to change the cultures of nonnative-speaker students and teachers and proposes suggestions on how to overcome this situation. Working with English as an international language brings up some conflicts among TESOL educators and researchers, who face cultural and political interfaces created by the native-speakerist attitude. The balance of power in the classroom is central to Holliday's proposal of cultural continuity and enriching encounters.

With eight chapters, this volume goes from the politics of educators of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL), culturalist perceptions of us versus them, the residues of audiolingualism, the bureaucratization of professionalism, social authenticity, and linguistic imperialism versus cultural resilience, to a wide range of propositions for development and reassessing language teaching principles. From his own multicultural international experience, Holliday expands qualitative research on cultural prejudices that emerge from a dominant ideology of English-speaking Western TESOL. Thanks to the comments of his informants from outside the English-speaking West, the author examines himself, his own practices, and the professionalism of a dominant culture of practice that has become normalized. Based on examples of academic life from classrooms, conferences, and documents, Holliday directs his research—sociologically speaking—toward the struggle in international English education as a residue of a colonial past. In the complex, divided, and diverse community of ESOL educators, the author analyzes the distance that emerges from a dominant particular ideology that has its origins within the culture but does not govern the thinking of all its members.

In my opinion, one of the most valuable sections is chapter 6, entitled “Stakeholder-centeredness,” which deals with the idea that the so-called communicative classroom serves to prescribe and control cultural behavior. Within the imperialism thesis, culturist native-speakerism has tried to incorporate people into existing systems and, therefore, has relied on stereotypical notions based on cultural prejudices of the day. However, there are cases in which either individuals or groups have used their own resources to resist the confining influence of these forces. Individual richness and social autonomy shape this cultural resilience to imperialism. As an example of this conflict, the author quotes comments from colleagues in English departments in Chinese universities who consider the us versus them problem. Because most ESOL educators fail to see the diversity, and thus miss out on the richness and the dynamism of what really goes on in English departments, he describes the complexity of local discourses in this way:

Based on comments and accounts from 36 ESOL educators from 14 countries, including 20 professionals from outside the English-speaking West, Holliday's research provides evidence of cultural discrimination when it comes to teaching English as a second language outside the Western world. This volume clearly presents the damage that can be done by cultural prejudice and pushes forward the boundaries of knowledge of TESOL as cultural and political practice.

The author succeeds in showing the reader his ideology of native-speakerism, through which the nonnative-speaker other is seen as culturally deficient. Within a multicultured TESOL world, Holliday illustrates an intelligent research framework designed to achieve cultural continuity. Clearly organized and well written, this volume provides a resourceful pool of opinions in TESOL education. It opens up a dialogue—left open-ended on purpose—for the reader to think about cultural identities and speaking English as a second language.