Understanding Globalization - 5th Edition by Robert K Schaeffer (Paperback)

About the Book

This book introduces students to the concept of globalization, providing an essential history, overview of key themes and theories, and a wealth of engaging examples. The fifth edition has been completely revised and rewritten to connect with students today, including the far-...

Book Synopsis

This book introduces students to the concept of globalization, providing an essential history, overview of key themes and theories, and a wealth of engaging examples. The fifth edition has been completely revised and rewritten to connect with students today, including the far-reaching effects of the recent financial crisis, global migration patterns, ISIS, and more.

Review Quotes

Understanding Globalization is an exceptional book that thoroughly covers contemporary issues relating to globalization that students find extremely readable.

Praise for previous editions:

This clearly written and vastly comprehensive book is a valuable and fascinating read. . . . Schaeffer turns his gaze to topics as varied as inflation, debt crises at home and abroad, stock market booms and busts, hunger and agriculture, free trade agreements, global climate change, democratization, and the global drug trade. In nearly every case, the research is solid and the choice of details fascinating. . . . I would recommend this book for general readers . . . or mid-level courses wishing to incorporate a global perspective.

This book is wonderful. It presents a very clear history of modern globalization and the role the United States has played in this process. It is currently the best book on explaining the historical conditions that have led to modern globalization.

Understanding Globalization reveals the complex, uneven, and often contradictory outcomes of globalization, such as growing economic inequality in some places, and increasing equality in others. It can facilitate economic integration as it has done in China or exacerbate disintegration and marginalization as it has in Africa. In this fifth edition, Robert Schaeffer explores how globalization impacts long-term processes such as development, democratization, and climate change, and how it can create short-term crises, such as war and conflict, and the 2008 global financial crisis that began in the United States. As a geographer, I appreciate that the book soundly documents the consequences that globalization has on both people and places, and that it seeks to explain a dynamic that is unevenly experienced around the world. The book is both accessible and substantial--a rare accomplishment. It has become my 'go-to' book on globalization.

About the Author

Robert K. Schaeffer is professor of sociology at California Polytechnic State University. He is author or coauthor of a number of books, including Social Movements and Global Social Change: The Rising Tide and Fast Forward: Work, Gender, and Protest in a Changing World.