This essay aims to make a critical reflection on modernity and the way the West has understood it. From some Latin American authors, such as Dussel and Quijano, who advance the concepts of transmodernity and colo-niality, respectively, and the dialogue with Wallerstein, the thesis is resumed that modernity is not a strictly European phenomenon, but rather to which the “excluded barbarians” contributed, even though their contribution has not been recognized. We introduced the concept of colonial difference in order to broaden the concepts of transmodernity and coloniality of power. The geopolitics of knowledge is organized around the diversification, through history, of colonial and imperial differences. At the end of the article we introduce Slavoj Žižek’s vision of “Eurocentrism on the left”.