Globalization: A Reader

Founders of the International Research Consortium on Global Change, based at Flinders University in Australia and Wesleyan University in the US, present a hefty collection of documents illuminating the concepts and realizations of globalism now and in the past. They begin with ancient Egypt and the age of empires and proceed through the modern world-system and industrial capitalism, global uncertainty and restructuring during the short 20th century beginning in 1914, the great globalization debate 1989-2010, contemporary globalization since 1996, and time and tense from 1980 to now and the future. Specific texts and authors include The Epic of Gilgamesh in Mesopotamia, Thucydides on Greece and Persia, Cahokia mounds in the Mississippi trading zone, the Peace of Westphalia, Robert Boyle and James Watt on thermodynamics and the steam engine, Sun Yat Sen and the end of dynasty in China, Joseph Stalin on the American threat, V. S. Naipaul on the post-colonial nightmare in Zaire, Manuel Castells on the network society, Naomi Klein on reclaiming the commons, the Project for the New American Century, Osama bin Laden on global jihad, Stuart Hall on the local and the global, Samuel Huntington and the clash of civilizations, Pheng Cheah on spectral nationality, global sex with Dennis Altman, and AbdouMaliq Simone on the disappeared. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Charles Lemert is the Andrus Professor of Sociology at Wesleyan University, USA and Visiting Research Professor at Flinders University, Australia.

Anthony Elliott is Professor of Sociology at Flinders University, Australia and Visiting Research Professor at Open University, UK.

Daniel Chaffee is Associate Lecturer in Sociology at Flinders University, Australia.

Eric Hsu is a PhD candidate and Associate Lecturer in Sociology at Flinders University, Australia.