In this historicalcontext, the category of "Third World literature" emerged, a categorythat has itself spawned a whole industry of scholarly and criticalstudies, particularly in the metropolitan West, but increasingly in thehomelands of the Third World itself.<br /><br />Setting himselfagainst the growing tendency to homogenize "Third World" literature andcultures, Aijaz Ahmad has produced a spirited critique of the majortheoretical statements on "colonial discourse" and "post-colonialism,"dismantling many of the commonplaces and conceits that dominatecontemporary cultural criticism. With lengthy considerations of, amongothers, Fredric Jameson, Edward Said, and the Subaltern Studies group, <em>In Theory</em>also contains brilliant analyses of the concept of Indian literature,of the genealogy of the term "Third World," and of the conditions underwhich so-called "colonial discourse theory" emerged in metropolitanintellectual circles.<br /><br />Erudite and lucid, Ahmad's remapping of the terrain of cultural theory is certain to provioke passionate response.