Athena, goddess of both war and reason, is best personified in the modern world by science. Modern, western science and technology are being used, in the name of reason, to wage war against man and his natural and built environment, nowhere more clearly than in the developing world. Contributors to The Revenge of Athena explore how modern science perpetrates violence against the people, societies, economics, environments, traditions, cultures, ontologies and epistemologies of the Third World; and investigate how the Third World can develop to meet the challenge of western science.
Part 1 comprises three essays that analyse the crisis in modern science and investigate the connection between science and ideology. They explore the question of whether science and destruction are inextricably linked, and whether there is something inherent in modern science that predisposes it to political and ideological manipulation. Part 2 assesses the catastrophic impact on the developing world of western science and technology, which has dismissed traditional thought, devastated traditional lifestyles and replaced tried and tested techniques with new methods that have all too often proved destructive and less efficient. At the same time, western science has inhibited indigenous scientific development. Part 3 explores the possibilities for reviving indigenous science in the Third World and revitalizing traditional techniques and technologies, so that ecologically-stable developing countries might attain new attitudes of self-reliance and non-dependence.