introduction
new or old?
size & shape
globalisation
law
e-regulation
innovation
volatility
B2C
B2B
M-commerce
voodoo
dot com books
resources
|
globalization
This page looks at globalisation, a term that is as
problematical as the new economy or electronic commerce.
Why not begin with incisive coverage by
Anthony Giddens in his short Runaway World (London, Profile 99)
and John Mickelthwait & Adrian Wooldridge
in A Future Perfect: The Challenge & Hidden Promise of
Globalisation (New York, Times 00). Michael Jordan &
the New Global Capitalism (New York, Norton 99) by Walter LaFeber
offers insights into global marketing and manufacturing, wrapped around
the sportsman's career.
Saskia Sassen's Losing Control:
Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization (New York, Columbia Uni Press
96) and Globalization & Its Discontents: Essays On The New
Mobility of People & Money (New York, New Press 99) are both
sparkling, although a tad too pessimistic in our view.
Robert Gilpin's The
Challenge of Global Capitalism: The World Economy in the 21st Century
(Princeton, Princeton Uni Press 00) is a view from the Right by a
leading US political economist, echoing Robert Kaplan's sombre The
Coming Anarchy (New York, Random 00). We enjoyed - tho disagreed
with Doug Henwood's Wall Street
(London, Verso 97), described by Christopher
Hitchens as "a charm against the priests and warlocks of
pseudo-science".
Kevin O'Rourke & Jeffrey Williamson in Globalization
& History: The Evolution of a 19th Century Economy (Cambridge,
MIT Press 99) offer a useful historical perspective. Williamson
co-authored Growth Inequality & Globalization: Theory, History
& Policy (Cambridge, Cambridge Uni Press 99).
David
Landes' The Wealth &
Poverty of Nations (New York, Little Brown 98) is crisp,
deeply-researched and intelligent. We recommend it over Manuel
Castell's neomarxist three volume The Information Society
(Oxford, Blackwell 99).
Castells tries, with some success, to
tease out the antecedents and consequences of living in the global
village. Frances Cairncross,
senior editor at the Economist, offers general insights in her
sprightly in The Death of Distance: How the Communications
Revolution Will Change Our Lives (London, Orion 97).
While big may not be best, the
Web isn't a level playing field. Bennett Harrison's Lean &
Mean: Why Large Corporations Will Continue to Dominate the Global
Economy (New York, Guilford Press 97) explores some of the questions
posed by Dan Schiller's Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global
Market System (Cambridge, MIT Press 99). His paper
Ambush on the I-Way: Commoditization on the Electronic Frontier
and Deep Impact: The Web & the Changing Media Economy (Info,
Feb 99) are provocative.
Thomas Friedman's
acclaimed but vacuous The Lexus &
the Olive Tree (London, HarperCollins 99) - "why is half the
world intent on building a better car, while the other half is locked in
primordial struggles over who owns which olive tree, which strip of
land?" - is a downmarket version of arguments in the more gutsy but
flawed The
Clash of Civilisations & the Remaking of World Order (New York,
Simon & Schuster 96) by Samuel P Huntingdon. Read Gilpin or
Sassen instead.
Anti-globalisation lament One World, Coming Ready
or Not (New York, Simon & Schuster 97) by William Greider -
author of an excellent study of US central banking - can be profitably read in conjunction with
George Gilder's deliriously upbeat pro-market tract
Microcosm:
The Quantum Revolution in Economics & Technology ( New York,
Simon & Schuster 89) and Lewis Lapham's mordant The Agony of
Mammon: The Imperial Global Economy Explains Itself to the Membership
In Davos, Switzerland (London, Verso 98).
Much of Ian
Angell's acclaimed The New Barbarian Manifesto: How To Survive The
Information Age (London, Kogan Page 00) is merely silly.
and the global info society
Global
Economic Commerce: Theory & Case Studies (Cambridge, MIT Press
99) by J Christopher Westland and Theodore Clark is an excellent
introduction, broader than the title suggests.
Alan Burton-Jones' Knowledge Capitalism: Business, Work &
Learning in the New Economy (Oxford, Oxford Uni Press 99) supplies
perspectives on how the new infrastructure will be used.
James
Cortada edited an excellent introduction to the 'economy of symbolic
analysts' - people who like you who work with facts & figures - in
Rise of the Knowledge Worker (Boston, Butterworth-Heinemann
98), part of a series that includes volumes on The Knowledge Economy
and The Economic Impact of Knowledge (both edited by Dale Neef).
next page (law)
|
