The Global Turn - by Eve Darian-Smith & Philip C McCarty (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The ability to deploy interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives that speak to interconnected global dimensions is critical if one's work is to be relevant and applicable to the emerging global-scale issues of our time. The Global Turn is a guide for students and scholars across all areas of the social sciences and humanities who wish to embark on global-studies research projects. The authors demonstrate how the global can be studied from a local perspective and vice versa. They show how global processes manifest at multiple levels--transnational, regional, national, and local--all of which are interconnected and mutually constitutive. This book takes readers through the steps of thinking like a global scholar in theoretical, methodological, and practical terms, and it explains the implications of global perspectives for research design.

From the Back Cover

"Eve Darian-Smith and Phillip McCarty have given us a major new contribution to the study of the global. Among the core elements are negotiating multiple forms of knowledge, decentering the production of global knowledge, and recognizing non-Western epistemologies. This is a must-read."--Saskia Sassen, author of Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy

"Erudite and accessible, The Global Turn offers a masterful delineation of the growing transdisciplinary field of Global Studies. Most importantly, Darian-Smith and McCarty's pathbreaking presentation of the theories, methods, and training relevant to Global Studies clarifies what it means to engage in global research. This is an indispensable guide to a better understanding of the new forms of global interdependence that shape our fast-paced world in the twenty-first century."--Manfred B. Steger, Professor of Sociology, University of Hawai'i-Manoa and Honorary Professor of Global Studies, RMIT University (Melbourne)

Review Quotes

"A must read for researchers because it presents foundational arguments and presents a step by step guide to global research."-- "New Global Studies"

"The book's seven chapters respond to the problem that no single discipline has all the tools and theories to grapple adequately with today's globalised issues. Thus, how is an individual researcher 'to develop appropriate research questions and design a viable research project?'. And how does a researcher 'begin the formidable task of doing global research?'. The Global Turn provides a reader with a methodical, considered, and accessible response to these questions." -- "Anthropological Forum"

"The Global Turn can be read as a manifesto of global studies; why it is important, and why one should study it, and why universities and academic establishments must embrace it. The authors provide forceful arguments on behalf of global studies, a transdisciplinary program that overcomes the limitations of traditional discipline based academic subjects."-- "International Sociology Reviews"

About the Author

Eve Darian-Smith is Professor and former Chair in Global Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara. Her award-winning publications include Religion, Race, Rights: Landmarks in the History of Modern Anglo-American Law and Laws and Societies in Global Contexts: Contemporary Approaches.

Philip C. McCarty is Lecturer in Global Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara. His recent publications include Integrated Perspectives in Global Studies, "Communicating Global Perspectives" in Global Europe: Basel Papers on Europe in a Global Perspective and "Globalizing Legal History" in Rechtsgeschichte.