SOURCE: “Paris Is Burning,” in New Republic, Vol. 214, No. 4, January 22, 1996, pp. 27–31.

In the following review of Jihad vs. McWorld, Zakaria argues that people who make legitimate personal choices are more responsible for the “McWorld” phenomenon—which he views to be primarily a beneficial one—than are multinational corporations, pop culture, and global markets.

Lately, President Clinton seems to have done a good bit of reading. Early this fall he had a highly publicized confessional with Ben Wattenberg about the latter's book, Values Matter Most. And in September, at a meeting with religious leaders in the White House, he recommended another book to the ministers and the assembled press corps. He lavished praise on a “fascinating book by a man named Benjamin Barber,” called Jihad vs. McWorld. Worried that he might have given offense to somebody, he quickly added that “it's not an anti-Muslim book, by the way. Islam...