Product Description

Globalization: it's a buzzword you can't escape. For some it's the ticket to a democratic world of instant communications and global prosperity. For others it's a money-mad juggernaut, spinning wildly out of control, threatening both cultural and biological diversity. Today the Western consumer model has seeped into every corner of the globe while gaps in wealth, food security and social provision continue to grow. The No-Nonsense Guide to Globalisation traces the journey towards a borderless world. And in the process it shows that the promise of globalization is seductive, powerful, and ultimately hollow.

About the No Nonsense Guides: Major issues facing the world today, complex as they are, are further obfuscated—often deliberately—by political and corporate jargon and media spin. By contrast, New Internationalist Magazine has been a leading source of reliable information and clear analysis for the last twenty years. This new Verso series of No Nonsense Guides, published in conjunction with New Internationalist, cuts through the confusion to present the facts and arguments concerning contemporary global issues as accessibly as possible. Concise, comprehensive, and affordable, the No Nonsense Guides will be of interest to busy people, from school age on, who want to know how the world works.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #763582 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Review
[A] concise and valuable overview of the world system, what has gone wrong with it—and the way ahead. -- John McMurtry

About the Author
Wayne Ellwood joined New Internationalist as an editor in 1977 and set up its office in Toronto. His previous publications include, as editor, The A-Z of World Development.

Customer Reviews

ok, but heavily biased
This book undoubtedly has a lot of research put into it. However, the crux and conclusion is a very biased evaluation. I would never call it a "No-Nonsense" anything.
The main problem I have with the book in terms of GLOBALIZATION is Ellwood only considers globalization in economic terms. All his examples and research area based on the "global economic system." Globalization is supported by the free market, but this is only part of the force.
Then, the way he analyzes the free market and democracy is unfair. He gives examples of the WTO, IMF, et al reducing democracy and sovereignty for economic prosperity. Then he speaks of international investors taking advantage of locals. BUT, he never investigates any other option. Look where Communism led China--50 M starved to death.
Lastly, his anti-American bias taints the quality of globalization argument as well. He equates globalization with Americanization. Many authors would disagree with that statement. He naturally disagrees with Americans, and uses it as a straw man method to pull down globalization too.
Revealing quotes:
"...US to flout both domestic and international law as it wages a unilateral 'war on terror.' The single-minded pursuit of this chimera has eroded civil liberties and human rights..."
"local cultures around the world are marginalized and devalued. Family and community bonds are disintegrating..."
"Companies make the profits but society has to foot the bill."

--The book is deceivingly easy to understand: following him is no problem. But what he says doesn't answer all the questions of the free market or Globalization. You'll need a more extensive book, and unbiased, to do that.
Recommended: The Globalization Reader
Why Globalization Works, (ok)
Thomas L. Friedman books

over all pretty ok
Nothing to brag about, but no complaints either. Shipping was good, price good, service ok.

a pivotal volume in a great series
If you like leftist Canadian thinkers like John Raulston Saul or Linda McQuaig, you'll love this handy little book. It is less obtrusively philosophical than Saul, less earthily anecdotal than McQuaig, but squarely in their broad line of thought.

Albeit in a somewhat muted and oblique way, the volume makes it clear that in its root impulses, globalization is an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon: Nixon's abandonment of the gold standard in 1973, Thatcher's coming to power in the UK in 1978.

It is odd for a Canadian based series that the major Canadian player of this era - our dear, late PET, despised by Nixon, Regan, Thatcher -- isn't even in the index.

Useful facts: the WTO is founded in 1994; its major instrument becomes the 1997 MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment). David Korten features heavily in the debate (his mid-90s WHEN CORPORATIONS RULE THE WORLD is not in the bibliography, even if a 1997 follow-up, THE POST-CORPORATE WORLD, is present). What is perhaps the book's most clutching assertion (one Korten had made more or less made in that earlier volume) is on page 73: "For every dollar that is needed to facilitate the trade in real goods, nine dollars is gambled in foreign exchange markets."