Globalization Books

"The future is notoriously difficult to predict, especially when it comes to terrorism which thrives on the unexpected. Brynjar Lia's Globalisation and the Future of Terrorism is probably the best guide available - an impressive tour d'horizon, methodologically sound, well-argued and convincing in its conclusion that, unfortunately, high levels of terrorism are going to be with us for a very long time."

Alex P. Schmid, UN Terrorism Prevention Branch, Vienna

REVIEW IN "TERRORISM AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE" SEPTEMBER 2006
"Prediction is a hazardous job, particularly when it comes to the future. So goes a popular wisdom told in a jest. Yet, author Brynjar Lia navigates through this intellectual minefield with aplomb and produces a book, which is by far one of the best works on terrorism this reviewer has read in a while. My enthusiasm for this book rests heavily on the clarity of Lia's arguments that makes this book so attractive."
- Professor Dipak K. Gupta, Department of Political Science, San Diego State University, USA


ADVANCE PRAISE
"The future is notoriously difficult to predict, especially when it comes to terrorism which thrives on the unexpected. Brynjar Lia's Globalisation and the Future of Terrorism is probably the best guide available, an impressive tour d'horizon, methodologically sound, well-argued and convincing in its conclusion that, unfortunately, high levels of terrorism are going to be with us for a very long time."
- Professor Alex P. Schmid, UN Terrorism Prevention Branch, Vienna

"Globalisation has had a profound impact on contemporary terrorist thinking and behaviour. A pre-eminent specialist on the security environment, Brynjar Lia has authored the definitive text on the subject. As terrorist and insurgent groups worldwide harness the forces of globalization, Lia skilfully dissects its enduring impact on security. It must be read by the specialist and the generalist."
- Professor Rohan Gunaratna, Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Singapore and US Military Academy, West Point and author, "Inside Al Qaeda, Global Network of Terror" (Columbia University Press)

"Dr Brynjar Lia is uniquely qualified to authoritatively speak on terrorism issues. This book provides an extremely useful analytical toolbox as to how globalisation and broader structural causes produce and drive terrorism across the globe in differing contexts. The new global security environment demands new thinking about terrorism. This book provides that critical roadmap towards understanding terrorism strategically as an asymmetric challenge for future generations."
- Dr Magnus Ranstorp, former director of Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, St Andrews University.

Excellent book on globalization issues but it really needs to be brought up to date.

The world we live on is one planet. It's a simple, obvious observation, but Waters seems to spend much time illustrating this idea. But his view of globalization is not quiet so simple. That we share the same space is a geometrical given. He illustrates even in his preface that people throughout the world have become interrelated. "Tasmanians know that they live on one planet because other people's aerosol sprays have caused a carcinogenic hole in the ozone's layer over their heads, because their relatively high rate of unemployment is due to a slump in the international commodities markets, because their children are exposed to such edifying role models as Robocop." He seems to illustrate that for better or worse; humans throughout the planet are now inextricably linked to one other on economic, political and culture levels. These links are span the global based on their mobility. Waters defines their mobility according to their nature: "material relationships localize, power relationships internationalize and symbolic relationships globalize." Economy for him has a high level of symbolic mediation because it is intrinsically entwined with `symbolic tokens' that would originally have been money, under Giddens' description, but today extend to even less finite concepts. While cash in the form of coins or bills previously had a physical form, today, the concept of money or capital is, in many cases, just numbers on a transaction sheet. Waters views the economic realm as highly symbolic, highly fluid and highly globalized giving it the capable of moving most rapidly over the planet and subsequently the providing strong impetus for global interactions and subsequently globalization.

This is a book about globalization that has a simple and well-defended thesis: that the debate about the extent of globalization in the world economy is polarized between those who say it is already globalized and those who say globalization is nonexistent or irrelevant. They argue that the truth (as usual) lies somewhere in between.
-- there is a vast difference between a strictly global economy and a highly internationalized economy in which most companies trade from their bases in distinct national economies. In the former national policies are futile, since economic outcomes are determined wholly by world market forces and by the internal decisions of transnational companies. In the latter national policies remain viable, indeed they are essential in order to preserve the distinct styles and strengths of the national economic base and the companies that trade from it (p. 185).

Because the academic debate is between polarized positions, it has been less than helpful as a guide to political actors. The myth of extreme globalization, in the author's view, "exaggerates the degree of our helplessness in the face of contemporary economic forces," (p. 6) while the denial of globalization makes it difficult to address the very real problems of governance posed by an "internationalized" world economy.

Governance is defined here (somewhat vaguely) as the "control of an activity by some means such that a range desired outcomes is attained..." (p. 184). It is meant to represent activities carried out not just by governments of nation-states but also by supranational organizations like the European Union, transnational actors like the multinational corporations, and subnational actors like the regional and provincial governments of federal national systems. While internationalization of the world economy creates incentives and opportunities for international governance that bypasses or transcends national governments, national governments will still have a role, say the authors, in assuring that the new governance structures are coherent and (if coherent) democratic.

The book contains some interesting arguments about the changing nature of governance in Europe, especially since the formation of the European Union. In Chapter 7, the authors assert that responsibility for governance in Europe has shifted to some extent toward the Union level, but also to some extent toward the local and regional (provincial) level, in order to compensate for the inability of national governments to address certain problems. According to the authors, "Regions are small enough to possess 'intimate knowledge' and yet sufficiently large to aid and regulate local economies through a significant revenue base." [p. 167] However, the authors also assert that the national level will remain significant because the "Union could not conceivably create central institutions fast enough and with enough legitimacy to achieve an effective federal-regional division of labor, marginalizing national government sin most economic regulatory functions." [p. 168] As a result, "Europe will be divided into successful and failing regions.." [p. 168]. While this is not a very cheerful prediction, it is a well-argued one.

In general, I found the authors' arguments about the continued relevance of national governments persuasive. I also liked their point about the increased importance of subnational and supranational regions. However, I found the discussion of the activities of multinational corporations (MNCs) in Chapter 4 to be rather dull and long-winded, despite the fact that the authors were presenting their own analysis of newly collected data. The main assertion made in that chapter was that MNCs are not very global yet, since most of their production (and other important activities) is still national, and most of their international activity is with neighboring countries. This is not a particularly novel point, and it could have been made in a crisper and more interesting manner.

Chapter 2 does a good job of placing the debate about economic globalization in historical perspective by looking at data on internationalization prior to World War I. The main point of this chapter is to show that the current upturn in internationalization is not unprecedented.

Chapter 3 provides a useful overview of data on the growth of foreign direct investment since the end of World War II. It is a little deficient in its discussion of the rapid increase in Japanese FDI since the 1980s, but it does a good job of describing the general phenomenon. Toward the end of the chapter however, the authors attempt to speculate about whether the growth in investment activity by multinational corporations can help to reduce global economic inequalities, but only rather cursorily and inconclusively, thus weakening the impact of the earlier empirical arguments.

Chapter 5 of the book is devoted to the question of whether the developing countries of the Third World have benefited from internationalization. In this chapter, the authors argue that most of the people of the Third World have not benefited from internationalization but that they must do so in the future, even if this means greater market intervention on the part of the world's governments. Hirst and Thomson are pessimistic about the ability of Third World countries to copy the policies of rapidly growing Asian countries like Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea. They agree with Paul Krugman that the rapid growth of the Asian newly industrializing countries (NICs) will not last because of the exhaustion of the benefits from converting from agricultural to industrial pursuits. Finally, they point out that NICs depended on relatively open markets for their exports in North America and Europe, and that the growing protectionism in the industrialized countries reduces the likelihood of future success in export-led growth strategies. The main changes the authors advocate to produce "a fairer world" are more foreign aid, "ethical private capital investment," and policies to improve the terms of trade for developing countries [p. 120]. I found this chapter to be overly pessimistic about the future prospects of developing countries and weak on prescriptions for change.

I was disappointed by the authors' avoidance of any serious attempt to define rigorously the key concepts of globalization and governance, but, on the whole, I found this book to be well written and well argued. I would recommend it as supplementary reading for upper division undergraduate and beginning graduate students. Its primary strength is that it contains a reasoned and reasonable thesis about the limits of contemporary economic globalization.

The authors make this "Globalization In Question" a great antidote for people (especially in the Business and Administration area) that can't stop repeating that "the world is globalized, the world is globalized" like parrots. It's very pleasing to have some kind of skepticism about this whole discussion. In countries of the Third World, this talk about globalization is particularly dangerous since glued to it comes the neoliberal talk. And don't be scared by all the "economics". After reading this one, I can garantee that you will pay more attention to the books you're buying about the "global world".

If you've never read Buckminster Fuller's writings, you've missed out on one of the most remarkable minds of the 20th century. Yes, he invented the geodesic dome and laid out the principles for some kinds of tensile structures. He was also a tireless inventor. He did not necessarily create something fundamentally new each time, but always sought out more value for the dollar and pound of resources, and always measured that value in quality of human life. Except for the dome, his developments are often paraded and quixotic oddities, stripped of Fuller's real intent. This brief book lays out his philosophy for human welfare in terms of national and trans-national economics.

His thinking is clear and gentle - human happiness always comes first. It comes across in a whirwind of ideas, racing across the page faster than words can keep up. It's not rare to see a sentence start with economics and finish with stellar thermodynamics. You'll also sentences wildly stretched to hold just one of his ideas in complete form. Two consecutive sentences stretch from page 8 to 12! Even English words are too small to hold the atoms his ideas, so he creates the most startling hypenated word-collages. For example, in discussing how tools grew out of and extend the body, he writes:

"Nests and eggs are indeed tools, as is the womb -
an only-once-in-a-while, carried-within-mammalian,
new-life-production tool."

Social criticism, economics based in the physical world, tempered technological optimism, and a wonderful heart - they're all here, wrapped in a unique package of words. Whether or not you agree with his "economics of wealth", as opposed to "economics of scarcity," it's a remarkable view of human society.

//wiredweird

People got impatient with Fuller because he kept throwing out a timeline which went something like this: if we work like crazy for the next 10 years, we might solve some of the major problems we've always put up with, e.g. death by starvation to take a big one.

Then another decade goes by, and a lot more people starve, and people shake their heads thinking "Bucky, Bucky... he just didn't have a clue, did he?" Well, I say he most certainly did. Not his problem or fault that we never staged his "design science decade" with such concerted effort and focus. And the potential to improve our collective lot aboard Spaceship Earth is still real.

What's fun about 'Grunch of Giants' is it marks the end of a long trajectory, where the 'real Bucky' finally hits the water, after the decades-long arc of a canon ball. He makes a big splash, and sets up a lot of ripple effects, many of which we're feeling to this day.

The main thing is he reawakens threads around the issue of corporate personhood, questioning how LLCs got to be "persons" in the eyes of the law. Decades later, Thom Hartmann starts to uncover some answers in 'Unequal Protection' which deserves to show up as a kind of sequel to 'GofG' on many levels.

Countering a soulless march to oblivion, an automatic pilot response to a desperate situation, were heroics, integrity, and the more agile networks. Readers may spontaneously think of the Internet (still in its infancy when this book came out -- no web to speak of), but I also think of networks like CBS, a corporation to be sure, but with a lot of life in it (not soulless).

Bucky was aware of his image through the years, how people saw him. He started out as a kind of benign Buck Rogers, one of those mad inventors coming up with wacky futuristic designs, and making comforting noises about utopian possibilities. But in the meantime the Cold War had gotten going in earnest, followed by a backlash in the 1960s and 1970s, with a new generation finding that Sword of Damocles (the ongoing prospect of immanent nuclear holocaust) entirely unacceptable. The USA became radicalized, as Colby confronted Congress with crazy-making testimony regarding Vietnam, as John Kerry squared off against the Westmoreland types, as colleges projected 'Hearts and Minds' to shocked audiences (1974). Fuller kept going, incorporating all these developments, and coming back with 'Critical Path'. Plus he floated World Game. Increasingly, he had to be taken seriously, less as a harmless crackpot entertainer (like the guy in the 'Six Flags' ad campaign), and more as a serious revolutionary thinker, with difficult-to-sort-out ties to the CIA (E.J. Applewhite, his lead collaborator on 'Synergetics' was an associate of Helms, another Yale grad, and former Deputy Inspector General of the agency -- as the back of the paperback edition of 'Synergetics' made sure we knew).

Indeed, the CIA figures prominently in GofG, which is part of what sets it apart as more "realistic" than some of his earlier poetry. Stocks and bonds, treasury bills, prominent figures of the day mentioned by name -- it seemed like Bucky was finally intersecting our special case reality, at some odd angle, true, but that just added to the uncanny feel of the book. Plus it's very literary, alluding to Orlando Furiouso, which in turn links to Orlando, Florida and the giant BuckyBall at EPCOT: Spaceship Earth. To top it all off, around the same time this book was declaring the USA we have known "bankrupt and extinct," Reagan and company decide this'd be the right time to give Fuller a Medal of Freedom. Shortly after, Fuller dies. 'Cosmography' was posthumous.

This is Bucky at the top of his game in my opinion, a great work of literature. I'm surprised it's not on more college syllabi, as it's quite short and readable, yet opens onto a huge number of threads both into history and mythology. Mythology is about both the very distant past and the very distant future (Fuller thought they sort of came together, given his eternally regenerative universe model), and 'Grunch of Giants', like 'Synergetics' itself, is very definitely a major work in the humanities. Five stars for Bucky.

1. Introduction
William H. Marling is a professor in English- and world literature at Case Western Reserve University. He has worked as a financial journalist for Fortune and Money magazines and has between 1982 and 2002 taught at universities in Spain, France, Japan and Austria. These professorships, in addition to visits to many other countries for shorter periods of time have built the empirical basis for this book, his primary sources. But he also consults with highly regarded (and sometimes disputed) authors such as Inglehart and Hoftstede as to provide for more theoretical approaches and fundaments. Marling has however chosen to focus mainly on three countries for comparing US influence, namely Mexico, France and Japan. His rationale for this book is to, as the title indicate analyse "How "American" Is Globalization?", that is to challenge or at least investigate the assumption that globalization is an American driven and valued trend. He finds this interesting because a lot of anti-American agitators criticise the American influence on societies in the modern world, but Marling is more of an opinion that this trend of American culture diffusion is possible only because of the contemporary global modernization trend, and more importantly that this trend not necessarily just preach American values.
He is however not totally unaware that there is American influence on parts of the world society and therefore part his book into two main parts ("Less Than We Think" and "More Than We Know") with a middle part complementing the first part (The Resistance of the Local). He first seek to give examples for how little American cultural values globalization actually exhibit, then goes on to give a general oversight over the mechanisms that makes the local cultures so resistant to fundamental change. Last he gives examples of the parts of society that actually is influenced by American values, and these are in addition not that visible either.
He is generally positive towards the contemporary influence of globalisation as in many aspects see its development of societies throughout the world as an valuable asset for the worlds general modernisation, progress and prosperity, and seem to avoid the more negative effects of globalisation, namely unemployment and violation of workers rights, pollution, ruthless exploitation of resources and so on. But this is essentially not his goal with this book either as his main task is to show how surprisingly little American culture that globalisation actually exhibit in the end, even though the US is one of the main drivers of globalisation.

2. "Less Than We Think"
Marling's first part brings up his notion of a biased anti-American world view where critics only seems to emphasis the moments and events that is typically foreign (read: American) in other countries, not taking into consideration the other country specific peculiarities that is quite common for the country in question and to the degree that these actually in reality overshadow the American impact (Marlin 2006: 1).
American logos for restaurants and fast food chains are some of the most known symbols for this trend and therefore also subject to much critique as symbols of American cultural imperialism. But the matter of fact is that even though American created logos are visible in many foreign countries, one can usually only recognize a few as American of the over hundred logos. This brings him to the actual content of logos, and the meaning behind them. Logos has to create some sort of resonance to have the wanted effect (that is to advertise for some product), but this volatile resonance changes the meaning in different cultures and contexts simply because of cultural differences. The want for shoes in Mexico can for example be driven by a want to have shoes (as a statues symbol, simply because not everyone has shoes) rather than having shoes of a certain brand (Ibid: 2ff).
An interesting point here is also the English language which is said by many critics to be spreading more broadly and becoming the new lingua franca. But this is only partly true, and that is in business and research where it is a dominant language, but the matter of fact is that languages has come and gone at all times and this time is no different. Other languages is also used to a greater degree than English, both as native- and second-language, for example Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish et. al. English has mostly only remained dominant in Anglophone areas of the world, and standardized languages are increasing and reaching new highs. In relation to English used in business, science and education it is also just English as a limited tool to manage and understand technicalities of some sort of professional information, not as a form of socialisation (or colonialization), and at the local level English is also devoid of American or English cultural meaning, it get mixed and strongly coloured by the local environment (Ibid: 7ff).
Pop culture in general are also not necessary a part in a cultural imperialistic crusade. Take Hollywood for example where it is today more and more common for different film studios of different nationality to cooperate on projects, do the filming abroad, using local workforce and so on. The typical block buster movies are now also increasingly made so to try it to fit in as many regions of the world as possible, the message of the film has to be simple and understandable for both conservative Poles and liberal Americans alike so they can identify themselves with the content. There is therefore little room for a tirade of American values pushed on any country one wishes, it will be met with strong reactions on local levels. American film is now therefore also just another competitor to other countries film industries. The same goes for television where local oriented programs and shows has manifested itself, and the content of American programs and TV shows are holed out to adapt to other regions, Donald Duck is a different duck from country to country. English is not the dominant language on the internet either any more as more an more language different regions gain access to the net, creating their own content. Actually internet is helping preserve certain languages from being extinct (Ibid:18ff).
Fast food is also not some American specific trend either, as many countries always have hade some sort of fast food in their culture. McDonalds and the other American fast food chains are also not unique in the world realm as other countries like Japan and Great Britain also diffuse its fast food corporations throughout the world. McDonalds is not even the biggest fast food chain in the world that is the British Compass Group (Burger King, Sbarro and others). And even though the local McDonald franchises abroad have strict corporate statutes to follow they even encourage the local restaurants to have their own local specialities in addition to the traditional McDonalds food, and not just American burger and fries (Ibid: 51ff).
In other industries US transnational companies dominate only a small portion of the world's industries, among these are oil, financial services, aviation and computing. But their dominance is only possible because of the large American domestic market which gives these just enough power to survive on the world market because the domestic market are protected from external economic shocks by quotas and antidumping laws (Ibid: 66ff).

3. The Resistance of the Local
In part two of his book Marling tries to give general examples of how reluctant the world is to change on the local level. Globalisation and modernization does exist and influence the different regions, but the local customs and culture have essentially a hard time adapting to "foreign" influence. This reluctance span over all parts of the society, from language to food, from regional infrastructure to business habits and so on (Ibid: 81ff).
Language and communication is an important aspect in this relation as many people learn other languages than their mother tongue (or la langue maternelle as Marling calls it), and that English is taking over as a sort of new lingua franca. The meaning and content of a secondary language is very difficult to learn in a way similar exhibited in the practise of the mother tongue, as this latter hold several cultural specific words and concepts that only persons who have learned this language from birth succeed to exercise sufficiently. The point made by Marling in relation to language is that he has a hard time accepting that English or any other lingua franca will displace the mother tongue. English is in many non-English speaking devoid of these cultural and value-laden particularities so important for inter-subjective communication (Ibid: 82ff).
This goes for other cultural differences as well, as there is a communicative distance and barrier between societies that is manifest in for example different cuisines, gender and nationality (tribalism), education and work, how to create infrastructure, and business and economic conduct. These cultural specific characteristics is deeply rooted in the history of each society and defined throughout life in a self enforcing way, giving little room for reform and in this context globalisation. In other words, one has to see the global impact of American culture and influence in the light of this local reluctance to change, because even though globalisation influence and gives the regions of the world more and more options these options are highly manipulated and reconstructed to fit cultural and local preferences (Ibid: 84ff).

4. "More Than We Know"
The third part of this book deals with the actual influence the US exhibit, and as the title of the chapter say, it is more than we know, even though it in many aspects is rather invisible to us. Marling describes the nature of ATM machines and other modern means of payment, which in many countries have different interfaces and producers which has adapted to the specific regions in question, but the underlying structure of having money available and easy to provide is an American cultural phenomenon. The US has also led the increasing use of money markets, which in Marling's notion means the individual's ability to invest its savings in portfolio investments (FPI), in different foreign (and national) funds, stocks, bonds, certificates of deposit etc. This has lead to increased investments in underdeveloped regions and is also closely accompanied by evolution of the computer industry to provide secure information for these investments to be most profitable and prevent losses (Ibid: 144ff).
The American fiscal and commercial trends has also manifested itself in the flexible way corporations conduct its businesses around the world; changing production facilities, work stock and products quickly and highly sensitive to economic fluctuations; franchising out business with requirements of certain standards and rights for each franchise, mirroring American cultural values; using highly sophisticated and complexly composed logistical means such as air- and container freight to keep efficiency and productivity on an high level. And it is this last point that is the most important aspect of American influence for Marling, as the real influence and productive competitiveness is exercised through the methods globalization is sustained by, namely a highly effective system of logistics (Ibid: 152ff).

5. Conclusion
In his concluding remarks Marling sum up the theme of this book by highlighting the reasons for the anti-American and after his own notion misperceived reality of the American status as globalization pioneer. The critics of "Americanization" which mainly is based in Marxist ideological frames so strongly expressed by Gramsci, Horkheimer, Ardorno and Marcuse in the 1930 miss the point of globalization by only focusing on the "dystopia of modernity", that is that western progress and modernization happens on the expense of the underdeveloped world. The critics seem not to respond to the fact that globalization in many aspects has led to increased prosperity in the world on a general basis, and that it is not only the underdeveloped world that gets influenced but also the industrialised and developed countries, such as the US which also is changing and where more and more foreign influence is exercised. But the local cultures are not necessarily destroyed because of this, they endure, adapt and recreate globalizations and modernizations new developments the best they can, leading to greater diversity (Ibid: 194ff).

College-level collections will find intriguing William H. Marling's analysis of the influence of American technology and culture on foreign societies. Marling is a professor of English and world literature: in his deconstruction of the myth of global Americanization he argues that in actuality the reaching effects of the U.S. are less than one might think from reading popular accounts - and he backs his contention with proof.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

In 315 breathless pages this book covers the history of US Corporate accountability struggles and the more recent activist battles over sweatshops, dolphin safe tuna, tobacco, Burma, and rule making in the global economy. In every case the book discusses how the campaign looked to the consumer, the activist, and what the lingering impact of it is. Every chapter ends with at least a couple of pages of "lessons learned".

Much space is devoted to the topic of Brands. In the chapter on sweatshops Nike gets lots of attention, primarily because everybody is familiar with them, but also because as a Global Brand they have a name to protect. The authors discuss how the activist goal was to put the company in a situation where "all they had to do to rehabilitate their Brand was stop using sweatshops for manufacturing." They acknowledge how it would be much harder to go after the no-name manufacturers with clothes on the same racks, even though their sleaze problems could easily be worse. After reading the book I had a better sense of what a Brand is all about.

Another topic that gets a lot of attention is how many of our consumer issues have global implications. In the tuna campaign the activists thought they had a great victory when they got Congress to pass a law against the practices that killed so many dolphins. Unfortunately, the tuna fishermen responded to the law by "offshoring", changing their boat registration so they could fly a foreign flag. Sometimes they didn't even move where they fished or docked, they just did their registration paperwork in Mexico or some more exotic Capital. The tobacco companies responded to the shrinking of the American cigarette market by developing markets overseas. Over and over the idea that we need a coordinated international response to this kind of stuff comes up.

The lesson is driven home in spades in the case of Burma. Activists worked to get local jurisdictions to vote to stop doing business with the totalitarian regime in power there, a strategy that had worked well in South Africa's case. They were undermined by international agreements that made such initiatives "illegal barriers to trade". Even so, a lot of companies were talked out of doing business there. The country was forced to hold elections, but the pressure was not great enough that the people elected were actually given power. I could almost see frustrated activists saying "well at least we made something happen".

The last case recounted is "The Battle In Seattle", where activists shut down the WTO in the full limelight of all kinds of press. They show how many lessons learned about using the Internet to get the word out in earlier campaigns like the Burma one kept the corporations from fully controlling the spin on the news the way they had in previous eras. The authors consider it a great victory that the previously quiet backwater of international trade negotiations was now promoted to the front page of political debate. Told from the activist point of view, the book does a good job of tying all these issues together.

You come away from this book feeling that people do make a difference, even though progress often happens at a slower pace than we would like, and success often is followed by backlash. The book is well organized, not as a barrage of information, but as a series of well developed stories that have a common thread. Corporate globalization is presented as the race to the bottom by which capital moves freely to wherever cost is lowest, leading to investment where environmental standards are the most lax and exploitation the most severe. The prescriptions for change are debatable, yet worthy of debate.

About thirty years ago a popular writer called Eric Van Dankien wrote bestsellers to prove that aliens visited ancient civilsations. A BBC program criticising his arguments used the example of an 18th century bell tower ('The Campanile') in Trinity College Dublin which bore a resemblance to a three stage rocket. It used this example to show that van Dankien's arguments were superficial because based on mere formal analogy.

Paul Mason's book might be in danger of falling into Van Dankien-style argument....but, then again, maybe not.

Each Chapter takes a major event from the history of the emergence of the labour movement (Peterloo, Lyon Strike 1830, Paris Commune, The 19th Century German SPD, the Bund, Shanghai workers uprising, Italian sit down strikes of 1921, Flint Michigan strike) and places each of those beside his own reportage of a contemporary experience of labour in the globalised economy.

At the heart of the book is this method of formal comparison, which leaves its key thesis (concerning how the working class went global) unproven and only suggested. What is repeating and what is different remain mostly unknown to us at the end, but we have a sense that there is some degree of repetition in the current experience of unskilled industrial labour across the world.

In so far as there is a political argument, it is scattered thoughout the book and you have to look to find it. Mason believes that revolutionary syndicalism was built around a false theory of the revolutionary general strike, but that it had the incalculable achievement of developing "the union way of life" in the industries that had grown up in the 19 the century (P.142)

He believes that the 'war' (P.173, see also P.248) between social democratic reformers and revolutionaries that broke out in Germany and then Italy has been the key to determining modern history.

He believes that the competing ideologies of nationalism and communism made it impossible for the expermimentation of 19th century union organising to be repeated in the 20th century (P.194-195, see also P.206)

His sensitivity to working class culture is evident, reflecting his avowed working class background. At one point he quotes Simone Weil on the Renault Billancourt strike that was triggered by the election of the 1936 popular front in France:

"As soon as the oppression weakened, the suffering the humiliation, the bitterness silently accumulated over the years became a force strong enough to weaken the bonds...."(P.260)

This is what Mason highlights. The culture of the union, the way consciousness can weaken the bonds, the ideological minefield that marked the way forward from the most basic union victories.

His conclusion - "There is for the first time a global working class.."(P.280) and the past gives us some inkling of the future possibilities of this class - is worthy and even important.

But if we dig down from the carefully wrought appearance of this book (the use fo primary sources is quite brilliant), we see that things are not as they seem. The recounting of the historical events by contemporary activists and the reportage of current events are fundamentally different. Mason intervenes as the crucial voice in the latter, while leaving the former to the memoires of activists, however well edited by him. By this device he heightens those similarities he relies on. The map of the current situation bears little resemblance, by his own admission, to the profile of political forces in the 19th and 20th centuries and his optimism for anti-globalisation movements is merely parachuted into the book.

We are left with the rubrics of hope and expectation stil competing for our attention, and expectation has not been signficantly strenthened by this well written, clever book.

By Alistair B Kelman - See all my reviews
How can you tell the stories of the struggle of the working class in a manner that seemed relevant today? Only by counterpointing present day reportage of poverty and human rights abuses amongst the underclass of people who support our modern society with the unvarnished tales of the battle for working class justice over the part two centuries. Peterloo, the Silk Workers strike in Lyon, the Paris Commune, pre-war German metalworking socialists, China under Japanese occupation, Brzeziny in Poland - all seem populated by aliens to a modern television viewing wired reader. How could civilised people live cheek by jowl with such human rights abuses and downright inhumanity?

We need to learn the lessons of our history - to stop us compounding them. This book deserves to be on every secondary school history teachers' reading list and in every university library. Only by showing the next generation the relevance of the working class struggle can you enable them to build on lessons learnt to improve the present and future.

Paul Mason's book shows how the trade union movement grew, became global and then imploded as it failed to maintain its social contract with the working class. Today in modern service economies with good enforceable `elf and safety and employment laws trade unions seem an irrelevance. In developing countries the trade unions tend either to be part of corrupt kleptocratic establishments or are supporting shibboleths which exclude the poor and unskilled from the very rights which the original trade union organisers fought for.

Paul tells stories about the past to give us some pointers towards our possible future. As far as this goes this is good. But "Live Working or Die Fighting" is only a starting point. It, together with Hard Work: Life in Low-Pay Britain form good foundation texts on which we can get young people debating the follow-on questions - How could underclasses be globally protected from abuse in a free market economy?" "What activities could genuinely help foster the failures of all businesses which engaged in cruel, inhuman and unsafe practices against the underclass.?

Read it and think - the solutions are out there. And we owe it as a debt to the brave people who founded the working class movement to finish the story for them in the way they would have wished.

This book is very well written and helpful for anyone operating in the business worldwide. I am writing my thesis on the textile and apparel industry in Italy and South Korea, and this book has been an helpful source for getting information and comparing the information I already had in hand. So little we may know about other countries cultures, especially when doing business with foreigners. This book will help you to understand other people and the way they do business. "This book has been written in the hope that it will, within its own field at least, aid its readers to better see others as those others see themselves, and to better see themselves as others see them". David Hickson

If you're going to manage in a country and culture different from your own, you're going to make some serious mistakes. Hickson and Pugh teach us a lot about cultural values that we assume to be given, but which are a reflection of our own native culture, and which are not necessarily appropriate in a different culture. Things like formality vs informality, hierarchical cultures vs. flat cultures, power-distance, etc. are communicated and explained. I recommend this book to all expatriate managers.

My son received this book as a gift and absolutely loves it. I'll find him playing with the pieces and telling the nursery rhymes all on his own. It's been great in helping him develop his imagination and memory. We love the illustrations and colorful characters. I highly recommend this book for ages 2 - 4.

I'm quite impressed with the quality of this book. It's a good way to show the kid how a cow jumps over the moon, how humpty dumpty has a nasty fall, how the mouse runs up the clock. I'm disappointed with two aspects only: size of the pieces, they're too small, should make them bigger. secondly, it doesn't stick, so you can't put it right side up. As I bought this for my playgroup, I was a bit disappointed. Nonetheless, I think it's a good buy.

Hope stays alive in The New Globalization: Reclaiming the Lost Ground of Our Christian Social Tradition by Richard W. Gillett. The book contains some wonderful historical reviews of how various societies through the ages have viewed poverty and work, and how the Church has responded. However, Gillett focuses mostly on the present period and its immediate antecedents and how an increasingly global economy is affecting both poverty and work. It raises alarm bells in anyone with half a Christian conscience.

In the book are some interesting stories of various Church responses to the growing crisis. If the reader has been around for many years, it is a pleasant jogging of memory. If the reader is fresher upon this earth, then it is a necessary prologue to the struggle ahead. Gillett ends with a hopeful agenda for action that is firmly based in theology, a sometimes ignored, but always necessary grounding.

In the end, one is torn between depression about the slender response of the Church to the crisis and stirrings of hope. Hope finally wins as the reader gets caught up in Gillett's passion for justice and the hope that this passion enkindles. The New Globalization is well worth reading.

Given popular fixation with the power of the Christian Right, Gillett has performed an exemplary service. Rooted in the Social Gospel tradition of American Christianity, rather than complain yet again about the CR, he has shown us the alternative. He has recovered not only the Social Gospel's moral convictions but its focus on the economic, political, and culturual injustices that it a century ago identified as the real challenge for compassionate conservatives and liberals who count themselves Christian.
Gillett takes us through Biblical teachings, the evolution of Church teachings, the Social Gospel period itself (during the late 19th and early 20th century)--and most important shown its relevance to the contemporary world. Just as the original Social Gospelers both intellectually opposed Social Darwinism and worked practically to reform the economy, politics, and the culture itself, so Gillett has crafted a book that sets out the intellectual arguments against unregulated markets, the practical consequences of not acting, and given us models of successful change meant to restore a more equitable and morally fit relationship among markets, democractic governments, and the culture as a whole.
Well worth reading.