This collection, edited by Alan Freeman and Boris Kagarlitsky, provides an analysis of globalization from a Marxist point of view, focusing particularly on the large-scale economic processes visible in the world today, and on comparisons with earlier periods of capitalism.



The collection itself is quite useful in terms of data and statistics, providing ample evidence for any doubter to refute such liberal ideas as that markets lead to convergence, that unified markets tend to create political unification, that liberalization of the economies has led to greater prosperity in the Third World, and that a freer market explains why the United States generally does better than continental Europe and Japan.



Nevertheless, there are some serious problems with this book. The main one, immediately apparent, is the annoying rhetorical tone adopted throughout and the general anti-American sentiment in it. Hardly a paragraph goes by or phrases such as "bellicose imperialism", "New World Order hegemons", etc. etc. are used to describe America. Some of it might be deserved, but nevertheless the constant tone reminds one of the stupidest aspects of modern-day radical leftism, and suits the Michael Moore crowd much better than a critical Marxist reader. The book would have gained enormously if this tone had been abandoned and they had stuck by the facts, which are bad enough as is. This goes in particular for the idiotic conspiracy article by Turkish Marxist Sungur Savran in this collection.



The second major problem is that the book argues, in the (otherwise quite good) introduction that globalization can essentially be considered a new form of the old imperialism of the 19th Century. Strangely enough, hardly any evidence of this is further given, and none of the articles in the collection itself are a defense of this particular view. One certainly gets the impression that it might be true from all sorts of circumstancial evidence given in the context of other analyses in the book, which are fine on their own, but the actual connection is never made. This is odd to say the least.



What saves the book are the exceedingly good articles by the book's editors themselves, Freeman and Kagarlitsky. Freeman's article shows both the reality and the causes of the inequality of nations today, and establishes irrefutably that liberalization in the past decades has not improved the lot of those not already best off to begin with. Kagarlitsky in turn gives a socialist view of the current international relations between the various Western states, including Russia, in particular focusing on the European Union. This is very well done and one wishes it were longer. Of some additional interest is also the article by Patrick Bond about "global apartheid" (another such rhetorical flourish) which gives a good overview of the issues facing developing nations in combating the power of the IMF, World Bank etc.



On the whole, I would advise to buy this book to read the articles by Freeman and Kagarlitsky. Unfortunately, I wouldn't bother reading any of the rest.