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Globalization
by Zygmunt Bauman
Columbia Univ Pr, 1998, 0 edition,160 pages
ISBN: 0231114281
Book Description
The word "globalization" is used to convey the hope and determination
of order-making on a worldwide scale. It is trumpeted as providing
more mobility - of people, capital, and information - and as being
equally beneficial for everyone. With recent technological developments
- most notably the Internet - globalization seems to be the fate
of the world. But no one seems to be in control. As noted sociologist
Zygmunt Bauman shows in this detailed history of globalization,
while human affairs now take place on a global scale, we are not
able to direct events; we can only watch as boundaries, institutions,
and loyalties shift in rapid and unpredictable ways. Who benefits
from the new globalization? Are people in need assisted more quickly
and efficiently? Or are the poor worse off than ever before? Will
a globalized economy shift jobs away from traditional areas, destroying
time-honored national industries? Who will enjoy access to jobs
in the new hierarchy of mobility? From the way the global economy
creates a class of absentee landlords to current prison designs
for the criminalized underclass, Bauman dissects globalization in
all its manifestations: its effects on the economy, politics, social
structures, and even our perceptions of time and space. In a chilling
analysis, Bauman argues that globalization divides as much as it
unites, creating an ever-widening gulf between the haves and the
have-nots. Rather than the hybrid culture we had hoped for, globalization
is creating a more homogenous world. Drawing on the works of philosophers,
social historians, architects, and theoreticians such as Michel
Foucault, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Alfred J. Dunlap, and Le Corbusier,
Globalization presents a historical overview of the methods
employed to create and define human spaces and institutions, from
rural villages to sprawling urban centers. Bauman shows how the
advent of the computer translates into the decline of truly public
space. And he explores the dimensions of a world in which - through
new technologies - time is accelerated and space is compressed,
revealing how we have arrived at our current state of global thinking.
Bauman´s incisive methods of inquiry make Globalization an excellent
antidote to the exuberance expressed by those who stand to benefit
from the new pace and mobility of the modern life.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1 Time and Class
Absentee landlords, mark
Freedom of movement and the self-constitution of societies
New speed, new polarization
2 Space Wars: a Career Report
The battle of the maps
From mapping space to the spatialization of maps
Agoraphobia and the renaissance of locality Is there life after
Panopticon?
3 After the Nation-state--What? Universalizing--or being globalized?
The new expropriation: this time, of the state
The global hierarchy of mobility
4 Tourists and Vagabonds
Being a consumer in a consumer society
Divided we move
Moving through the world vs. the world moving by
For better or worse--united
5 Global Law, Local Orders
Factories of immobility
Prisons in the post-correction age
Safety: a tangible means to an elusive end
The out of order
Notes
Index
Buying information
About the Author
Zygmunt Bauman was born in Poznan, Poland. He came to Britain in
the 1950s with his wife Janina (a writer in her own right) and took
up a position as Lecturer before becoming Professor of Sociology
at the University of Leeds in Yorkshire. He is a prolific writer
and more so since formally 'retiring' and becoming Emeritus Professor
of Sociology. He has been described by the British sociologist,
Anthony Giddens as: 'the theorist of postmodernity.. he has developed
a position with which everyone has to reckon.' (back cover of (1995)
'Life in Fragments' (Blackwell).
Author's links
books:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/Author=Bauman%2C%20Zygmunt/107-0872531-8654161
http://www.netstoreusa.com/phbooks/063/0631192670.shtml
http://www.feltrinelli.it/schede/88-07-10287-0.html
http://www.jesuites.com/cyberboutik/etudes/e3916/e3916rs1.htm
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/023111/0231114281.HTM
http://buch.netstoreusa.com/174/074/0745610161.shtml
http://wcw.emory.edu/OXFORD/Bauman.htm
informations about the author:
http://www.politologiske.dk/bau.htm
http://www.sociologyonline.co.uk/PopBauman.htm
http://www.septakademie.co.at/septak/sep98/baumann.htm
http://www.urova.fi/home/ytk/sosiologipaivat/bauman.html
http://www.bibin.hio.no/dr10/leon/leon20.htm
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