The Cultural Imperative

by Richard D. Lewis

Aiming his work at the general lay reader, Lewis (the head of a cross- cultural and language training institute) advances a theory on the origins and intractability of cultural differences and proposes a model for identifying the characteristics of different national cultures. The majority of the work is devoted to detailing what he thinks are the defining characteristics of different cultures, with a scale that labels cultures as existing along a tripartite axis of linear-active, multi-active, and reactive categories. An epilogue written in the wake of the September 11th attacks looks at cultural clashes between the U.S. and the world of Islam.