Globalization /

Includes bibliographical references (pages 173-180) and index.

1. A world of difference -- 2. What on earth is happening?: precursor theories -- 3. Brave new worlds: recent theories -- 4. World-class production: economic globalization -- 5. Earthly powers: political globalization -- 6. The new world chaos: cultural globalization -- 7. The end of the world as we know it.

The succeeding chapters trace the effects of the process through the arenas of economy, politics and culture. Here the book gives a lively treatment to such topics as planetary environmentalism, the new international division of labour, the new world order, growing religious fundamentalism and democratization and marketization. These topics are integrated within a theoretical account that views globalization as the consequence of the new pre-eminence of culture in social life.

We are surrounded by globalizing developments: the emergence of the global communications industry; the growth of multinational enterprises; the influence of global financial markets; global warming; and international action on human rights. These have brought the idea of a global society into prominence. We now recognise that the constraints of geography are shrinking and that the world is becoming a single place. In this crisp and incisive book, Malcolm Waters provides a much needed guide to the concept in social theory and the social, economic and political consequences. The first two chapters offer a critical summary of the main theories of globalization, outlining the standard contributions - modernization and convergence, the capitalist world-system, transnationalization and the global village - before moving on to tease out the common threads in the contemporary globalization theories of Robertson, Giddens, Harvey and Beck.