Modernity today is global and multiple and no longer has a Western 'governing centre' to accompany it. The essays in "Alternative Modernities", therefore, approach the dilemmas of modernity from transnational and transcultural perspectives. The idea of 'alternative modernities' holds that modernity always unfolds within specific cultures or civilisations and that different starting points of the transition lead to different outcomes. Without abandoning the Western discourse on modernity, the contributors to this volume write from the standpoint that modernity is not one, but many. Believing that the language and lessons of Western modernity must be submitted to a comparative study of its global receptions, they focus on such sites as China, Russia, India, Trinidad and Mexico.Other essays treat more theoretical aspects of modernity, such as its self-understanding and the potential reconciliability of cosmopolitanism and diversity. This issue initiates an important dialogue to be continued in a four-part series, the Millennial Quartet, whose remaining three issues, which will appear in the year 2000, will focus on the thematics of globalisation, millennial capitalism, and cosmopolitanism. Contributors of this title are: Homi Bhabha, William Cunningham Bissell, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Dilip Gaonkar, Michael Hanchard, Beatriz Jaguaribe, Leo Ou-fan Lee, Claudio Lomnitz, Thomas McCarthy, Tejaswini Niranjana, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Shahzia Sikander, Charles Taylor, Andrew Wachtel.