Coloniality, on Mignolo's account, is what modernity requires in order to function. The five centuries that produced the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and industrial wealth also produced racial classification, patriarchy and a control of knowledge he gathers under one phrase, the colonial matrix of power. The book maps three responses to the present order: rewesternization, which seeks to restore North Atlantic leadership; dewesternization, which contests that control while keeping the economy it built; and decoloniality, which delinks from both. Argument proceeds largely by reading. Kant's lectures on geography are examined for the racial hierarchy lodged inside a canonical philosophy, the Zapatistas are read for their theoretical contribution and its ethical consequences, and cosmopolitanism is rebuilt from local starting points. Epistemology is grounded in location through the formula I am where I do and think, illustrated by Evelyne Trouillot introducing herself in Lima as woman, Black and Haitian. The book completes a trilogy begun in 1995.