What's the truth about about globalisation... and what's just "globaloney?" Michael Veseth believes that much of what people understand about globalisation is really globaloney-bombast built on a few vivd images and exceptional cases that distort more than they reveal about the world around us.
Globaloney separates rhetoric from reality by snapping close-ups of the classic globalisation images and comparing them with unexpected alternative visions. Do Michael Jordan and Nike really define globalisation? Why not David Beckham and World Cup soccer? Is globalisation McDonalds and McWorld? Why isn't the global wine market a better metaphor? And what can we learn about how globaisation works at the grassroots by comparing the elitist, publicity-hungry Slow Food movemente with the massive but virtually invisible international trade in worn and wrinkled second-hand clothes?
Veseth convincingly explainshow all globalisation is local why the French so love to hate it and what Adam Smith has to do with it. The book shows why it is dangerous to generalise about globalisation and, through its wealth of examples, demonstrates that globalisation is not one big thing but many different yet related, particular things.
Rather than advocating a particular ideology of globalisation, the author allows readers to develop their own critical analysis of contending viewpoints and provides objective critiques of both pro-globalisation and anti-globalisation claims. Globaloney is an irreverent but important look at how globalisation really works. |