This book analyses the emergence of the modern global novel, and the way it mirrors the underlying process of the globalization of culture. It focuses on Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, Conrad's Lord Jim, Achebe's Things Fall Apart and No Longer At Ease, and Vargas Llosa's The War at the end of the World. In these works, a global narrative unfolds, as the forces of modernization tragically clash with the embattled defenders of traditional society.