Globalization Books

Nicholas Hagger's work on the story of the coming World Government is truly outstanding. It is also essential for anyone who would comprehend the complexity of twentieth century history in its entirety.

Hagger fundamentally views modern history as the struggle between elites. In this volume, he focuses on the activities of the Rockefeller and Rothschild groups as they control a larger entity that Hagger styles the Syndicate. In his companion volume to this excellent book, Hagger treated of the revolutionary saga from the Renaissance to the Bolshevik Revolution. There, he illustrated quite convincingly that the key revolutions were brought about by the machinations of Templar and Sionist Rosicrucian freemasonry. In the more modern era, Hagger seems to hold that the commercial interests of the aforementioned elites have, to an extent, transcended the occult formulations of international freemasonry. This is a fascinating thesis, which does explain a great deal.

In terms of particulars, I can report quite honestly that I never truly understood the dynamics of the Suez crisis and of the very strange and sudden disintegration of the Soviet Union until I read Hagger's very important and insightful book. For these insights alone, the book is well worth the time, money, and effort.

In candor, I must report that I cannot agree with all of Hagger's propositions at this point. However, his work is really most outstanding. And to anyone who would appreciate a very unique and terribly insightful exposition of modern history, I heartily recommend this very excellent book.

It would have been nice to agree with the previous glowing review, on the strength of which I purchased this book, but truth to tell Professor Hagger has written a dreadful work. Words one could use to summarise its faults include: inaccurate, inconsistent, incoherent, confusing, contradictory and breathtakingly naive. This is a pity because tucked away in the pages of "The Syndicate" is a thoughtful, but not entirely original idea, about the rise and decline of civilisations and what civilisations try to do when at the peak of their power.

Hagger claims to offer "something of a pioneering work" (p.294) in suggesting the push for world government is tied to a particular phase in the "North American civilization". He suggests that at the peak of their power civilisations try to remake the entire world in their image. That is hardly controversial and not that groundbreaking, except that Hagger goes further to suggest a more benevolent form of American hegemony is in danger of being hijacked by a cabal of "Rockefellerites" and "Rothschildites", the "Syndicate", who want to put in its place a more "Luciferian" world government. Hagger interweaves into this an idea about elite factionalism mostly in a somewhat confusing story of the "Rockefeller" and "Rothschild" factions of the Syndicate manipulating the Americans, British, Europeans and Russians in a grab for oil resources. There may be something in the idea of a long-running fight for oil being the driver behind many of the wars and other international events of the past 100 years, but Hagger's effort to merge such squabbles with his theory of a world government conspiracy succeeds only being amatuerish and unconvincing.

Moreover his essential theory is lost in the midst of a meandering and frequently contradictory text that relies a little too much on books of dubius providence, such as John Daniel's "Scarlet and the Beast", Adrian Krieg's "July 4th 2016", and quite excessively on David A. Rivera's "Final Warning". Hagger also makes heavy use of the American Free Press, another publication of dubious reliability. If Hagger were just another backwoods hack or inner-city nerdy autodidact this would not matter. But he claims to have been a professor, thus one would expect some serious attempts on his part to present an account that would test the claims of Rivera, Daniel and other authors, but he doesn't. Instead we are treated to various dubious claims being presented by Hagger as the truth.

We might also expect a more coherent and consistent work. Again we are disappointed to the point where one wonders whether the incompetence lies with his publishers or with Hagger. Compare, for example, Hagger's declarations the "danger" of "Syndicate New World Order" is that it would be "socialist" with a "redistribution of wealth" one of its central features(p.265), with his later arguments that his preferred world order -- which he calls the "New World Order Revolution" or "Christ's New World Order" -- embodied in his quotes from Paul 2:44-5 about the rich giving up their homes so "distribution was made to each as any had need" (p.284). And then Hagger's assertion on p.320 that "capitalism is triumphing globally because of the world government lobby, the "Rockefellerite"-Bilderberg Syndicate." So the Syndicate's N.W.O. capitalist or socialist? Is Hagger's preferred world order socialist by name or nature? It's just not clear.

It gets no better in Hagger's account of the fight between the Rothschild and Rockefeller factions, including which faction is truly prevailing at the moment, who belongs to these factions, and what their actual objectives are. If the reader becomes confused it because Hagger was too. Quite frankly Hagger's account is a mess.

With much better editing and more extensive research of primary sources Hagger could have written a much better and more memorable book. Unfortunately he has done neither himself nor the reputation of academia any favours with this crude and amateurish effort.

SRK

Finally, a solid book about this pressing matter, and refreshingly without the usual hysteria or excessive speculation. Hagger has done his homework and is initially just concerned with supplying extensive data. Upon this he builds his case: contrary to popular belief, the desire for world domination has never died down. There is a clandestine group, let's call them 'the Syndicate', which desires to achieve this aim. Most of the defining events of the 20th century have been orchestrated by this club, and now the machinery is in place. The world is on the eve of global government, and nothing can prevent it.

However, as Hagger argues, globalization is not a bad thing. Malevolent globalization - that's a bad thing. If we do nothing, the New World Order will manifest very 'Luciferian'. Tyranny under the guise of 'democracy' (sounds familiar?), the masses exploited (and depopulated) for the profits and power of the elite. Just like now, except very much worse. Should we remain asleep and apathetic, things will certainly go this way. Nevertheless, the NWO also has the potential for a 'Christ-like' manifestation (in non-fundamentalist fashion, that is). It could be motivated by true Universalism - Liberty and Equality for All. This depends on whether we'll allow the Syndicate to infect it or not; it depends on whether key politicians can be stimulated to actually serve the people. The dystopia can be prevented, but we need to wake up... quickly.

Through various media we are gradually fed the idea of 'the United States of Europe'. It's part of the stepping-stone approach. What it's really about - the bigger picture - is the subject of this book. Let's ensure maximum awareness before it's too late.

As I am writing this there are 3 reviews, and one of them gives one star, and then goes on to attack the book - without any substantive criticism that I could find.

I think there may be much in this book worth of careful, critical analysis. But simply calling something "amateurish" is not a critique... and it is certainly not substantive. Such is the fodder of the pompous debunker I think - lets leave that closed mindedness to the Universities. Slander is not a counter argument.

What I took from this book was an appreciation for the financial dealings behind world events. It is justifiable to be curious when you learn that Hitler was funded by western bankers - that the Russian revolution was backed by western oil barons interested in mineral rights... and we see the same today as politicians become war profiteers in an Iraq oil grab. One would have to have their head up their ___ not to notice as much.

Hagger does a meticulous job in providing the reader all the information they need to validate the sources, and determine for themselves the value of the material. Much more so then other books of the genre... he provides 20+ pages of detailed notes. The research is the responsability of the reader. I don't necessarily agree with all of his conclusions, but I found the majority of the material very informative and accurate - and strangely in line with other perspectives on the hidden influence behind world events...

Do not depend on infantile slander in the guise of academic critique for guidance on the value of this book... read it and develop your own informed opinions.

Ah,yes. It's all the fault of those nasty patriarchal corporations (again). And the solution is so obvious! Live like a third-world peasant! I love it when first-world academics who enjoy all of the priveledges of high technology (medicine, air travel, food surpluses) advise others to live at the subsistence level. How terribly condescending to all of the REAL third-world peasants who desperately want to escape the subsistence-level life...the ones who vote with their feet by immigrating in hordes to first world, hi-tech capitalist countries. If the authors weren't so deadly serious, this book could be mistaken for a satire.

I didn't read this book. I don't intend to do so. The point of the book is pretty clear from the title.

Obviously, I can't do a point-by-point refutation of the work but I can make a couple of points just based on what I see in the reviews and such.

That is, when you attack Corporations, you are attacking PEOPLE. Yes, a corporation is a legal seperate entity but, in practice, it is not just a grouping of random pieces of paper, a corporation is made of people. Corporations are groups of individuals working together. They can be everything from a micro-corporations based on good ideas thought up by two enterprising women in Africa to Cisco Systems, which employs about 30,000 people around the world and is of primary importance to this life-enhancing and extending technology we call the Internet.

Also, this book obviously advocates for people living like animals on the land. That is what "Subsistence" refers to, after all. That is sick. If one is truly a humanist, than they should be advocating for enhancing and extending the lives of people around the globe.

As far as the environment goes...guess what, there is a corporation that is about to put all the oil companies out of business. In ten years, oil will be a lubricant and very little more. Then, where are you environmental complaints going to be directed? Remember its a CORPORATION that is going to do this.

"There is an alternative" gives and excellent analysis of globalisation from an ecofeminist/anti-colonial perspective. Most of the contributors have been influenced or inspired by the work of Maria Mies and the subsistence perspective that she and her colleagues have articulated. While there are so many analyses of globalisation these days, the ecofeminist perspective yields numerous new insights. For example, see Claudia von Werlhof's essay "Losing Faith in Progress: Capitalist Patriarchy as an 'Alchemical System'".

More importantly this book clearly demonstrates alternatives to globalisation that exist and avoids merely theorising. This is not surprising given that many of the contributors are leading activist-intellectuals such as Maria Mies, Vandana Shiva and Helena Norberg-Hodge. This book is essential reading to both understand the process of globalisation and to learn more about some of the alternatives that are already in practice.

I've always wondered why there is such an imbalance of wealth in the world and why environmental destruction continues despite our knowledge of its eventual consequences. I've wondered why there are so many wars in the third world and why Americans continue living in luxury while other parts of the world are dying of hunger.

This book shows a completely different perspective of the world and points to corporations as the cause of most of the world's problems. This book shows how people all over the world are defying the present corporate economic system in order to give control of the land back to the people and take the power away from corporations.

well, I was unfamiliar with most of the ideas presented in this book, reading it was a life changing experience.

I would highly recommend the book to anyone unfamiliar with the subsistence world perspective.

The author goes to great lengths to demonstrate that, when natural capital is included in the calculation, capitalism can be made docile. Capitalists are disinclined to follow this more ethical course without guns pressed to their temples, however. Corporations are mandated by Supreme Court decisions to put return on investment before any other consideration, meaning they are prohibited from acting ethically if profits might be compromised. This sociopathic perspective means corporations must "externalize" whatever costs they can, environmental costs being the easiest. "Free market democracy" (as used by neocons) means we must eat the soot and drink the effluent of industry.

Jonathan Porritt's CAPITALISM AS IF THE WORLD MATTERS provides college-level readers with a fine survey of how capitalism at its foundations may be a part of the environmental problem as a whole. Many time commercial activities themselves lend to eroding environments: it's up to both business and government to work hand in hand to build a form of capitalism and free market solutions which lend towards sustainability rather than away from it - and to consider the chapters in CAPITALISM AS IF THE WORLD MATTERS, which offers commentary and guideposts for building different capital resources.

Activist Jonathon Porritt offers the startling proposal that capitalism may provide the best solution to poverty and global environmental degradation, though his solution requires reshaping capitalism. Porritt is aware that conventional environmental activists, greens and political academics favor socialism more than capitalism. However, he takes them to task for ignoring the power and potential of such capitalist mechanisms as markets and property rights and for their naïveté in expecting voters or political leaders to embrace their dismal vision of environmental responsibility as asceticism. We find his book more suggestive than programmatic. It meanders like a river and is sometimes directionless. The author makes his passions apparent, including anti-Americanism and scathing criticism of certain forms of Christianity. Though Porritt does not offer a detailed description of his vision or the practical steps needed to realize it, he does suggest a path toward a utopian ideal; for that hope, he deserves appropriate attention.

a feast of inspirational ideas and theories hidden in an incomprehensible text.

In this offering Samir solidifies his position in the field of IPE. Center/periphery polarization is concomitant with an antidemocratic constuction of a global political system that subverts the once auto-centerd nation state. By virtue of the five monopolies, the West has controlled both the political and economic development of the world and given rise to a market economy that, in collusion with the political sphere, has subverted political rights and powers to the advantage of capital and its minnions. Hope can only be found when democratic and auto-centered political influence reigns in it's bastard son- the market, and defines it's parameters.

Samir Amin's analysis of the political economy of the world system is as precise as a set of mathematical theorems and, indeed, if any work in the field of IPE can lay claim to being a work of science, this is it. This is not an easy book to be casually read in the hope of securing instant gratification or wisdom; it is a serious work which the reader will have to read through quite a few times, and think through even more. At the end, though, the reader will be rewarded with a profound understanding of the reasons behind the societal collapse in large parts of the third, fourth and Soviet worlds; of why Europe remains, and could continue to remain, politically a pygmy; of why the "free market" will keep the majority of the world's peoples and nations "free to stagnate"; and why the folks living in "God's own country" can bid goodbye to the good old days of carefree plenty.

Great book. It chronicles several historical events that suggests american power weekening because of its militarist (military industrial complex). I bought this book for a class in college. it was interested to get a different view of world events and american exploits abroad.

Wallerstein is a Senior Research Scholar at Yale University. He analyses the absolute decline of the capitalist world-economy, from its genesis in 1450 through its development to its current `period of terminal crisis'. We now endure economic stagnation, political instability and social pathologies.

He points out that there is no escape from class struggle, internally between those for and those against a more democratic and egalitarian society, externally between those defending nations' sovereignty and those upholding the imperial `right to intervene'.

He has some dazzling insights - "The idea that leaders sell out, just like the idea that the masses are falsely conscious, seems to me analytically sterile and politically disabling." But there are weaknesses too, as when he focuses on the `left' and on `anti-systemic movements', rather than on the mass, on the necessity for every country to develop workers' nationalism, to control speculative flows of capital and labour.

Workers are the immense majority in the world. Migration from rural areas into labour markets has enabled capitalists to relocate, particularly to China. But the world is running out of new sources of cheap labour, and within a generation the new workers learn how to organise for better wages. So wage levels are rising as a percentage of production costs, averaged across the world. Also, taxes to pay for health, education and welfare are rising. Higher wages and taxes squeeze global profits, threatening capitalists' ability to accumulate capital, especially from industrial production.

So the USA is a colossus with feet of clay. Its economy is faltering, and it cannot use its military muscle to shape the world the way it wants. Unable to prevail over China and Korea, defeated by Vietnam, it is now trapped in the quagmire of Iraq.

Wallerstein concludes, "In the history of the world, military power has never been sufficient to maintain supremacy. Legitimacy is essential, at least legitimacy recognised by a significant part of the world. With their preemptive war, the American hawks have undermined very fundamentally the U.S. claim to legitimacy. And thus they have weakened the United States irremediably in the geopolitical arena."

Immanuel Wallerstein has some very important things to say in this book, and his thesis (shared by several authors of other new books): that America is a country in a state of very serious decline, dating back to the early 1970's, is certainly plausible given an examination of the existing economic statistics.

Mr. Wallerstein is at his best in the first and last parts of his book, where he speaks in clear, straightforward language, and offers us the insight of someone who has clearly read widely in history, politics and the economy. His analysis of the contrasting spending habits of Japan and the United States (pg. 26), with a powerful illustration to explain it, and the ramifications for the two countries' futures, is a fabulous insight that kept me reading, and looking for more keen observations.

Unfortunately, Mr. Wallerstein's writing, throughout most of the rest of the book, suffers from an all-too-common handicap among researchers and professors: leaden, often indecipherable, academic prose.

Here's an illustrative example from page 107: "The capitalist world-economy is a historical system that has combined an axial division of labor integrated through a less than perfectly autonomous world-market combined with an interstate system composed of allegedly sovereign states, a geoculture that has legitimated a scientific ethos as the underpinnings of economic transformations and profit making, and liberal reformism as a mode of containing popular discontent with the steadily increasing socioeconomic polarization that capitalist development has entailed."

Talking to us throughout the book, with repeated use of words and phrases like "bifurcation," "chronosophy," "praxis," "periodizations," and the "universalisms [that] presupposed the hierarchies of the modern world-system," the author leaves us wondering what he is trying to say.

And the author's over-emphasis on Yalta, the meeting after WWII among the victors of that war, leads to some overly simplistic cause-and-effect statements such as: "The collapse of Communism in effect signified the collapse of liberalism...This loss of legitimacy led directly to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein would never have dared had the Yalta arrangements remained in place. (p. 21)"

No mention is made here of oil, the geopolitical situation that existed at the time in the Middle East or America's foreign policy under George Bush Sr. and how it affected Hussein's machinations and military strategy; nor is there any analysis of the now-infamous fact of Bush's double-cross of Hussein, wherein one of Bush's diplomats, April Gillespie, when asked by Hussein shortly before he invaded Kuwait, if the United States had any interest in his activities with relation to that country, was ordered by Bush to falsely state that "No, we do not."

Almost immediately thereafter, Hussein invaded.

However, Mr. Wallerstein does have a very topical, intriguing and contrarian argument to make in his book, and one that is deserving of careful analysis: that capitalism is in crisis, and America along with it, and that either, or both, will be replaced or altered drastically, in the coming decades. And his use of "world-systems" as his method of analysis appears to be highly effective and well-considered.

Mr. Wallerstein has done Americans a service by informing them of the very real danger that America is in, economically, politically and otherwise. If readers have the patience and the fortitude to stick it out for the full-length of this difficult book, some hard-won insights and observations, await them.

In 1981, fund manager Antoine van Agtmael created the term "emerging markets," as opposed to "Third World," to describe developing countries, from Brazil to China. A pioneer in emerging-market investments, he describes the economic revolution being provoked by corporate activities in emerging markets. Van Agtmael enumerates the forces driving this transformation in the economic relationship between developed nations and their emerging-market counterparts. In the second half of the book, he shares his detailed research into the factors that make emerging-market companies notable and successful. He catalogues market details about 25 specific companies he has analyzed for investment purposes, and presents the lessons they can teach Western managers. We recommend this book to serious investors who want to know about promising non-U.S. companies, and to managers who want to read about their corporations' upcoming competitors - and potential future owners.

This book is poorly branded in my opinion, just like what is said about the authors original idea on Emerging markets vs. 3rd world.

This book is totally under rated, and under subscribed., do yourself a favour and open it up and read a few random pages, you will soon realize how clearly the book is written, and how compelling and refreshing the ideas are that are presented.

This should/could be a best seller in weeks, but has not been promoted effectively in my opinion.

Antoine, whats with the poor branding again ? You need a new cover design, and maybe new title. Go onto CNBC TV also. Your book is incredible but people won't pick it up based on its visual appearance.

The author did a very good job in showing us how some companies from emerging markets have become powerful in their own right and sometimes leaders in their market.
He describes different strategies and gives us examples of companies that followed those strategies.

However, his book lacks depth for the amount of pages it has. In all fairness, a book with only a hundred pages could have had the same message and the same effect.

"The French Challenge" is a MUST for anybody who wants to understand contemporary France. This is provocative book which has many insights into the love/hate relationship of the French with globalization. A very solid piece of work and a great read.

This is a wonderful book, thoroughly researched and very well written, which should satisfy both Francophiles and Francophobes alike! Gordon and Meunier offer a balanced account of a contemporary France that adapts remarkably well to globalization but hides this adaptation under a cloud of anti-globalization and anti-Americanization rhetoric.

The central claim of this book--that France is actually adapting to globalization (whatever that means) better than the political rhetoric might suggest--is counter-intuitive and interesting. However, it is superficially researched and lumps together public opinion, social movements, interest groups, trade policy, etc., as if they were acting in the same field and part of a single, homogeneous phenomenon. Although the overview of trade debates in several sectors is interesting, the authors reduce antiglobalization politics in France to a nostalgic longing for French 'grandeur'. Such a label is perhaps applicable to some sectors of the French elite (Chevenement, Seguin, Pasqua) but certainly not to the wide variety of social movements and associations that focus on the democratic deficit and the increase of inequalities.

Enron. WorldCom. Tyco. And the list goes on. Capitalism is practically a dirty word. Conversations in board rooms, executive suites, universities, and other environments of though wrestle with how corporations can pull themselves out of the quicksand of questionable integrity. Hilton and Gibbons have a few suggestions.

The authors are the founders (1997) of a British consulting firm that specializes in social marketing. They've built an enviable track record already working with a range of clients including Coca-Cola and Nike. Their position is that companies should start becoming the solution to the world's problems instead of being seen as the cause. By using their power for social good, they can influence environment issues, human rights, and social justice.

Seven chapters carry the message: Orthodoxy, Heresy, Responsibility, Leadership, Anatomy, Possibility, and Unity. Intrigued? Prepare to read an interesting book filled with examples and stories about how business became so unpopular, but really isn't so bad after all. The heresy chapter tells the other side of the story that is pounded at us through the media: globalization makes the poor richer, corporations are good for human rights, and we can close sweatshops and end child labor. Under Responsibility, the authors explore how corporations respond to all this criticism and how they can be truly socially responsible. Leadership is needed-real leadership, not just lip service. Commercialism, profit, and social good can all live together in harmony. The authors offer some ideas about what business could do to make a real difference and how ordinary citizens can join the movement for common good.

This is an almost conversational book that is comfortable to read. You'll gain some new perspectives and perhaps some inspiration.

Good Business by Steve Hilton and Giles Gibbons (co-founders of Britain's first social marketing company, "Good Business") has a very direct and candid message: "If you want to change the world, then do it through business. If you want to help your business, then help change the world." Written in direct response to anti-globalization protests, Good Business demonstrates how globalization can help people everywhere and make the poor richer. But only if the virtues of globalization are used in the right way; companies must take responsibility for the profits and global well-being of tomorrow, and those who champion social justice and environmental protection need to ally with business rather than make it their enemy. Highly recommended for entrepreneurial and social activists, Good Business offers a superbly argued presentation of how business and economic forces can potentially shape a better world for us all.

I found it extremely hard to keep my mind on this book. I felt exactly the way the average customer feels when confronted by a high pressure used car salesman. These people were here to sell me something - and anything goes if it clinches the sale.

Having said that, there is value in the book as it demonstrates areas in which business and customers can work together to find arenas of social activity that are to their mutual advantage. It also puts forward good examples of why it is to the advantage of a company to engage in these sorts of activity and that they can turn a profit out of it as well.

The first two chapters are better forgotten. They set up the least sophisticated of the arguments against globalisation as a sort of straw man that they then tear down with decidedly simplistic and statistically dubious arguments. (It is one of the banes of this very important debate that each side presents totally 'authoritative' statistics that 'prove' the exact opposite of each other. However, these authors argue that the gap between rich and poor is not growing wider, which *really* requires some fancy definition bending.)

In the rest of the book, it is necessary to ignore the underlying theme that anybody who criticizes an aspect of business practice or the current global system is antibusiness and because some business is doing things well and responsibly all business is therefore beneficial. Neither extreme position is true. This leaves the possibility of becoming interested in the examples that they cite of good practice and thinking, with them, of how these examples could be spread and expanded. There are clearly many opportunities and it is equally clear that the authors' particular promotional skills will often be useful in identifying these opportunities and working out effective ways of getting them accepted and implemented.

This is a pretty good book with a few flaws. It has four main points.

1. Islamic terrorism is done as an ethical end in itself with vague political intentions.

2. Jihadists have failed to change politics in their home countries, so they get the international media's attention with violent attacks, and thus try to project responsibility for these local failures onto foreign (democratic) people that it is their responsibility to address the local political problems the jihadists have failed at.

3. Islamic terrorism is a disorganized movement that spreads organically--new cells are created by small, inspired groups...there is no hierarchy and no dogma...only the belief in suicide bombing against Westerners and secularists as a good deed.

4. Jihadism is historically divorced from other Islamic movements because it scorns the authority of ulama and because the individual terrorists have vastly differing individual beliefs. Its message is, in part, that each Muslim can interpret doctrine his own way, without a Qadi or other official to direct his beliefs.

However, there are a few problems with the book.

1. First of all, 75% of Devji's sources are interviews with bin Laden and al-Zawahiri from 1998, or 2001 interviews. He needs to interview a greater variety of jihadists in order to have a better picture.

2. Second, he completely ignores the situation in Iraq. Since 2003, the number of suicide attacks in Iraq has been vastly greater than those anywhere else in the past 10 years. And I would guess that the majority of those attacks have a specific goal--an Islamic state in Iraq. It's suspicious and statistically ridiculous to overlook Iraq.

All in all, he explains international terrorism well, but not local terrorism in places like Iraq or Palestine--which have specific political aims.

Since the previous reviewer has done an excellent job summarizing this complex, dazzling, often exhilirating book, I should just say that I was really struck by Devji's writerly gifts that make layered arguments accessible to a lay reader such as myself.

How did Islam become a global phenomenon in Al-Qaeda's Jihad? This is the question that Faisal Devji seeks to address in his Landscapes of the Jihad. Devji argues that while violence is certainly the most visible part of Al-Qaeda's jihad, it should be taken into consideration with a "world of ethical, sexual, aesthetic, and other forms of behaviour" (xvi). Devji avoids attempting explaining contemporary Jihad as the result of political or nationalistic motivations. Instead, he argues that while Jihad is indeed meant to accomplish certain ends, it has become more ethical that political in nature. For example, Al-Qaeda, unlike the image portrayed by media in the west, actually has no "coherent vision or plan for the future" (4). Thus, it is absurd to suggest that Al-Qaeda's motivations stem from oppressive or disturbed conditions in the Muslim world. Indeed, most of the fighters in Al-Qaeda are actually privileged and inexperienced middle-class youth, who never had any experience of such conditions, choosing instead to "battle in more exotic locations like Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan" (4).

Devji believes it is high time scholarship began to distinguish global Jihad from local struggles. For Devji, Jihad today has become so globalized that it can be compared to environmental groups, supporters of disarmament, anti-abortion groups, etc. (12). Furthermore, contrary to popular views that all members of Al-Qaeda espouse a single school of Islamic law or thought, Devji shows that there instead exists a kind of pluralism, one that is accepting of "Arabs and non-Arabs, including even the Chinese" (16). Thus, some of the hijackers on September 11 were not averse to consuming alcohol, gambling in Las Vegas, or even attending lap-dances in clubs just a few days before their suicide missions (17). Devji explains such behaviour not as "schizophrenic" or "incongruous," but as "yet another sign of the disintegration of old-fashioned distinctions, whether religious or political, in a universe of global effects that is best represented by the mass media"-a theme that is repeated throughout the book (91). In addition, despite claims made by the popular media, Al-Qaeda has "no formal procedure of recruitment or indoctrination, not even by way of sleepers who supposedly lurk in mosques to trap the unwary martyrs of tomorrow" (20). As a result, the new Jihad is a series of global effects that subverts traditional forms of Islamic devotion.

Devji dismisses Osama Bin Laden's statements about Americans having a "government within the government," as conspiracy theories-something that Osama could have picked up while watching "a television show like the X-Files or a film by Oliver Stone" (6). However, it might be erroneous to dismiss Osama so simply since covert and surreptitious operations by the Americans to overthrow regimes, to cover up "blowbacks" or to support other unsavoury operations have been quite well documented. Furthermore, Devji points out that while most scholarship, and even the media, remains fixated specifically upon Sunni Islam and Middle East, "the most successful examples of political Islam have been revolutionary Iran and the Hezbollah in Lebanon, both [of which are] Shia movements" (21). Similarly, Devji criticizes scholars for not noticing that most Jihad today "happens to be based fore the most part outside the Middle East...among populations that have barely an inkling of Salafi or Wahhabi conditions" (21). The fact that they have Arab fighters or funding from Salafi or Wahhabi groups is not sufficient to convince Devji of the resulting nature of the Jihad there: "That the reverse might be true, with Arab fighters and financiers importing the jihad from these regions to the Middle East, is not seriously considered" (22). Despite these criticisms, Devji provides little convincing evidence to prove otherwise, mentioning insignificant movements such as the Tablighi Jamaat and the fundraising activities of Ayatullah Sistani in Iraq.

Another popular notion that Devji addresses in his work is the idea that Al-Qaeda is a puritan organization, inspired by Salafi and Wahhabi principles, and is therefore vehemently against Sufi or Shia practices. Instead, Devji shows that within Al-Qaeda such genealogies and structures have broken down, and that there exists a synthesis of various practices. For example, certain practices in the Al-Qaeda compare favourably with Sufi or mystical brotherhoods, "even if these happen to be disapproved by members of the movement itself" (42). There are also elements of mysticism that are frequently invoked, as well as Shia practices venerating the Prophet and his family. Devji points that there even is a tradition of the mahdi or messiah, as evidenced by Juhayman al-Utaibi's claim when he captured the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979 (48). Devji also explains why Hollywood movies (such as the Long Kiss Goodnight) are accepted as fact against news reports-"simple political intentions no longer suffice to explain events in a global landscape" (89).

The last half of Devji's book draws heavily from letters by Bin Laden, which present him as an erudite and well-informed man, not a radical and misinformed terrorist. For example, Bin Laden clearly explains Islam's right to Palestine based upon the faith's universality while making Muslims true heirs of the Jewish and Christian traditions (85). Indeed, there are even echoes to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 in one of Osama's statements. Ultimately, Devji's book offers fresh and new insights towards understanding Jihad today. A sorely needed book, it breaks the vicious cycle of tired and hackneyed arguments that one so often reads in the common media today while providing compelling insight into what is rightly now a global phenomenon.

Mr Hines has written an interesting book about localization as opposed to globalization. It may not be quite as good as Michael Shuman's Going local, but Hines gives us a viable alternative to the hypercapitalism which pits Third Worlds countries against each other in the race for foreign investments. ... there is an alternative to pro-trade economy, see for example Herman Daly (Beyond growth) or Hernando de Soto (The mystery of capital) for an excellent overview of why trade is not a road to proper development.

There is no spoon.

Its really instructive to read the other reviews of this book. Anti-globalization folks love it, and anyone with even basic economics training will hate it. It tells you a lot about the division in world views that drives the debate over globalization, which is really about moral economics vs utilitarian economics. This is something people in the West have been arguing about for 200 years; anyone who read Polanyi or any of the romantic critics of British Utilitarianism will find the content of this book familiar.
I found the book a good statement of one of the more extreme, but increasingly popular positions of the anti-globalization camp, one which envisions a world where people become more self-sufficient, do more satisfying labor, and where justice is more important than profits. I have to agree with the sentiments. But unfortunately I can't go along with the program, which seems like the worst kind of romantic and unrealistic idealism. This does not mean I agree with the critics, who think the only alternative to localization is just more untrammeled free market capitalism. You would think that after 200 years people would have figured out that this particular set of polar opposites is pretty useless to think with!

This excellent book explodes the myth that globalization is good for people or the environment, showing clearly how the harm it does usually outweighs any benefit. Localization, the proposed alternative, offers a real practical route to sustainable prosperity.

This book should be obligatory reading not only for decision makers in trade and politics but also for ever voter in a democratic society.