What Is Globalization? Hardcover - 2000

First line

The counter-revolution fails At the time when the Soviet empire was falling apart, Boris Yeltsin - who was then President of the Russian Federation - addressed the people of Moscow in a spirited speech against the Communist putschists from the top of an armoured car, a speech broadcast not by Soviet Radio (which was in the hands of the old Communists) but via CNN satellite.

From the rear cover

This important new book offers an engaging and challenging introduction to the thorny paths of the globalization debate. Beck aims to clarify the ambiguities of the debate, to distinguish between the various types of globalization and to warn the reader of conceptual traps. Most importantly, however, he opens up the horizon for political responses to globalization.

Beck focuses on two main questions: what does globalization mean? and how can it be moulded politically? He begins by examining the ambivalences and paradoxes of globality and globalization, with regard to society, economics, politics, ecology and culture. He sets out the rival perspectives in the globalization debate and assesses the prospects for a transnational state. Central to the book is Beck's argument that a decisive critique of globalism is necessary to make space for the primacy of politics. In the last section, he offers a series of constructive proposals to counter the current paralysis of politics, suggesting ten ways of addressing and answering the challenges of the global age. The book concludes by conjecturing that if our politicians do not respond creatively to the challenge, we will experience what Beck calls 'the Brazilianization of Europe'.

This book will be an important text for students and scholars in politics, sociology, geography and the social sciences generally. It will also appeal to a broader audience interested in key social and political issues in the world today.