Walter D. Mignolo is William H. Wannamaker Professor of Romance Studies in the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Literature at Duke University. He is the author and editor of several books, including The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options, also published by Duke University Press.

“Even regular readers of Walter D. Mignolo will find a wealth of new insights, analyses, and topics as he brilliantly considers some of decolonial theory's current controversies and new applications. With his hard-hitting insistence on the problems of Eurocentrism, Mignolo's spirited explanation and defense of decolonial theory is illuminating.” - Linda Martín Alcoff, author of (Rape and Resistance) “Walter Mignolo's oeuvre fiercely demands that we need to move beyond an engagement with the Euro American prison house of concepts and forge a theoretical vocabulary that is not merely an inheritance of colonialism. The decolonial option is premised on transcending amnesia-the manifestation of the colonial wound-toward traditions of intellection from the Global South. This new book shows yet again his uncompromising and ardent delineation of emancipatory landscapes of thought.” - Dilip M. Menon, Mellon Chair in Indian Studies, University of the Witwatersrand "Mignolo’s book collects a significant contribution into various key issues around decoloniality and the ongoing movement beyond Eurocentric modernity. . . . A powerful intervention developing decolonial thought in thinking paths forward and alternative futures rather than fixating or being limited to critique." - Ali Kassem (Ethnic and Racial Studies) "A hugely provocative, far-reaching, comprehensive and accessible book for scholars engaged across disciplines, geopolitical focuses, and languages. It proposes a particularly valuable provocation for scholars of European languages, especially challenging those of us for whom the jumping-off point for our analysis is so deeply situated in Modern Languages’ Eurocentric knowing and its attendant tactics of domination as factors to be taken for granted. It challenges and rewards the reader through its significant contributions to theory and the routes it offers to decolonial futures." - Rebecca Ogden (Modern Language Review) "Mignolo is at his best in his analysis of the nation-state and the limitations of Western political theories. . . . Mignolo’s magnum opus The Politics of Decolonial Investigations is a sober description of the history of the world of the last five hundred years, its atrocities, and injustices, but it also gives us hope by describing the world that is emerging from underneath the ruins of Western civilization." - Breny Mendoza (Society for U.S. Intellectual History) "The Politics of Decolonial Investigations constitutes an essential point of entry for all readers interested in decolonization. Thanks to its ability to synthesize complex problems within the field and Mignolo's constant reflection on how to exercise epistemic rebellion in the face of the colonial power matrix driven by coloniality, this is undoubtedly a book that will guide the new generation of researchers into the distant future." (translated from Spanish) - Omar Osorio Amoretti (Spanish and Portuguese Review)

• Preface  ixAcknowledgments  xxiiiIntroduction  1Part I. Geopolitics, Social Classification, and Border Thinking1. Racism as We Sense It Today  852. Islamaphobia/Hispanophobia  993. Dispensable and Bare Lives  1274. Decolonizing the Nation-State  154Part II. Cosmopolitanism, Decoloniality, and Rights5. The Many Faces of Cosmo-polis  1836. Cosmopolitanism and the Decolonial Option  2297. From "Human" to "Living" Rights  254Part III. The Geopolitics of the Modern/Colonial World Order8. Decolonial Reflections on Hemispheric Partitions  2879. Delinking, Decoloniality, and De-Westernization  31410. The South of the North and the West of the East  349Part IV. Geopolitics of Knowing, the Question of the Human, and the Third Nomos of the Earth11. MariÁtegui and Gramsci in "Latin" America  38112. Sylvia Wynter: What Does It Mean to Be Human?  42013. Decoloniality and Phenomenology  45814. The Rise of the Third Nomes of the Earth  483Epilogue. Yes, We Can: Border Thinking, Pluriversality, and Colonial Differentials  531Notes  563Bibliography  641Index  685

Walter D. Mignolo is William H. Wannamaker Professor of Romance Studies in the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Literature at Duke University. He is the author and editor of several books, including The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options, also published by Duke University Press.

“Even regular readers of Walter D. Mignolo will find a wealth of new insights, analyses, and topics as he brilliantly considers some of decolonial theory's current controversies and new applications. With his hard-hitting insistence on the problems of Eurocentrism, Mignolo's spirited explanation and defense of decolonial theory is illuminating.” - Linda Martín Alcoff, author of (Rape and Resistance) “Walter Mignolo's oeuvre fiercely demands that we need to move beyond an engagement with the Euro American prison house of concepts and forge a theoretical vocabulary that is not merely an inheritance of colonialism. The decolonial option is premised on transcending amnesia-the manifestation of the colonial wound-toward traditions of intellection from the Global South. This new book shows yet again his uncompromising and ardent delineation of emancipatory landscapes of thought.” - Dilip M. Menon, Mellon Chair in Indian Studies, University of the Witwatersrand "Mignolo’s book collects a significant contribution into various key issues around decoloniality and the ongoing movement beyond Eurocentric modernity. . . . A powerful intervention developing decolonial thought in thinking paths forward and alternative futures rather than fixating or being limited to critique." - Ali Kassem (Ethnic and Racial Studies) "A hugely provocative, far-reaching, comprehensive and accessible book for scholars engaged across disciplines, geopolitical focuses, and languages. It proposes a particularly valuable provocation for scholars of European languages, especially challenging those of us for whom the jumping-off point for our analysis is so deeply situated in Modern Languages’ Eurocentric knowing and its attendant tactics of domination as factors to be taken for granted. It challenges and rewards the reader through its significant contributions to theory and the routes it offers to decolonial futures." - Rebecca Ogden (Modern Language Review) "Mignolo is at his best in his analysis of the nation-state and the limitations of Western political theories. . . . Mignolo’s magnum opus The Politics of Decolonial Investigations is a sober description of the history of the world of the last five hundred years, its atrocities, and injustices, but it also gives us hope by describing the world that is emerging from underneath the ruins of Western civilization." - Breny Mendoza (Society for U.S. Intellectual History) "The Politics of Decolonial Investigations constitutes an essential point of entry for all readers interested in decolonization. Thanks to its ability to synthesize complex problems within the field and Mignolo's constant reflection on how to exercise epistemic rebellion in the face of the colonial power matrix driven by coloniality, this is undoubtedly a book that will guide the new generation of researchers into the distant future." (translated from Spanish) - Omar Osorio Amoretti (Spanish and Portuguese Review)

• Preface  ixAcknowledgments  xxiiiIntroduction  1Part I. Geopolitics, Social Classification, and Border Thinking1. Racism as We Sense It Today  852. Islamaphobia/Hispanophobia  993. Dispensable and Bare Lives  1274. Decolonizing the Nation-State  154Part II. Cosmopolitanism, Decoloniality, and Rights5. The Many Faces of Cosmo-polis  1836. Cosmopolitanism and the Decolonial Option  2297. From "Human" to "Living" Rights  254Part III. The Geopolitics of the Modern/Colonial World Order8. Decolonial Reflections on Hemispheric Partitions  2879. Delinking, Decoloniality, and De-Westernization  31410. The South of the North and the West of the East  349Part IV. Geopolitics of Knowing, the Question of the Human, and the Third Nomos of the Earth11. MariÁtegui and Gramsci in "Latin" America  38112. Sylvia Wynter: What Does It Mean to Be Human?  42013. Decoloniality and Phenomenology  45814. The Rise of the Third Nomes of the Earth  483Epilogue. Yes, We Can: Border Thinking, Pluriversality, and Colonial Differentials  531Notes  563Bibliography  641Index  685