Most of the literature dealing with intercultural communication presupposes that communication is a tool for some other purpose like selling shoes or making a personal relationship ""work."" Such an assumption is what has given rise to the idea that intercultural communication can be ""problematic. Much of the justification for doing intercultural communication research is that business, world peace, and security are contingent on our ability to communicate effectively across cultural and national boundaries (which are not the same thing as evinced by ethnic civil wars within national boundaries). Intercultural Communication and Global Integration presents the reader with a three-part approach to intercultural communication; communication, culture, and consciousness. Intercultural Communication and Global Integration argues that communication, culture, and consciousness combine to form one's intercultural perspectives. The tool of language is central to understanding the relationships between these three elements. While most tend to view these three areas as separate parts, the reader will see they are much more integrated than most typically think. For example, the relationship between communication and culture is so close that there are those who have argued that principles of communication are virtually identical with anthropological descriptions. Intercultural Communication and Global Integration includes student centered pedagogical features in each chapter, such as: Topics/Objectives Pre-Chapter questions that help the reader focus his/her reading References Charts, photos, and diagrams

This book is about the anthropic epoch and the extinction vortex we are witnessing. Currently a mass extinction of species is occurring. At the same time a mass extinction of languages and cultures is also occurring. These two mass extinctions, biological and cultural, are linked. Currently, transhumanists hope against hope to upload their minds into virtual reality to escape death. Both extinctions and the plan to escape them by uploading our minds into computer networks are rooted in a narcissistic delusion of immortal self-actualization. This is a pathetic death-defying delusion of late modernity - hypertrophic selfishness. The common denominator is a particular culture that has become dominant, spreading across the globe. As it transcends the world-system. This is the absurdity of the most profound delusional accomplishment of the anthropic epoch, the extinction vortex. The more powerful and individualistic we become the more power we crave, and the faster the extinction vortex spins us with it.