Runaway World: How Globalisation Is Reshaping Our World

In recent weeks I’ve had a number of emails touching on the subject of Globalisation. In a few I’ve made reference to Anthony Gidden’s 1999 book, Runaway World: How Globalisation Is Reshaping Our World.

I recently pulled out of storage and over the next few days I‚Äôm going to work through each chapter as a way to reintroduce some ideas about Globalisation and build a support for future posts on the topics. Apparently, there is a slightly revised version now available, but I’ll be looking at original 1999 edition. This book helped me crystalise a lot of ideas and also spun me off into a rich vein of secondary literature. It is far from the final word on globalisation; rather it is a good, concise and provocative introduction.

Despite being written well before 9/11 Runaway World is rather prescient about the directions in which Globalisaion would develop. If anything, the post-9/11 world has confirmed the glocalisation theory (the world is simultaneously becoming more local and more global) that Giddens proposed and which I adopted in my work on the ethics of resentment.

In the next post I will outline the first chapter, which deals with the nature of globalisation and the debates surrounding it. For now, here is a quote from the brief introduction, which sets the tone for the book.

“Globalisation also influences everyday life as much as it does events happening on a world scale. That is why this book includes an extended discussion of sexuality, marriage and the family. In most parts of the world, women are staking claim to greater autonomy than in the past and are entering the labour force in large numbers. Such aspects of globalisation are at least as important as those happening in the global market-place. They contribute to the stresses and strains affecting traditional ways of life and cultures in most regions of the world. The traditional family is under threat, is changing, and will change much further. Other traditions, such as those connected with religion, are also experiencing major transformations. Fundamentalism originates from a world of crumbling traditions.
The battleground of the twenty-first century will pit fundamentalism against cosmopolitan tolerance. In a globalising world, where information and images are routinely transmitted acrosss the globe, we are all regularly in contact with others who think differently, and live differently, from ourselves. Cosmopolitans welcome and embrace this cultural complexity.

Fundamentalists find it disturbing and dangerous. Whether in the areas of religion, ethnic identity or nationalism, they take refuge in a renewed and purified tradition Рand, quite often, violence.”

Runaway World – Introduction
Runaway World – Globalisation
Runaway World – Risk
Runaway World – Tradition
Runaway World – Family
Runaway World – Democracy

[tags] Anthony Giddens, Runaway World [/tags]