"One of the most comprehensive histories of modern capitalism yet written." —Michael Hirsh, New York Times An authoritative, insightful, and highly readable history of the twentieth-century global economy, updated with a new chapter on the early decades of the new century. Global Capitalism guides the reader from the globalization of the early twentieth century and its swift collapse in the crises of 1914–45, to the return to global integration at the end of the century, and the subsequent retreat in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008.

In Global Capitalism (originally published in 1991), Richard Peet surveys the various approaches made by social theory towards seeing history in terms of its regional dynamics. He reviews environmental determinism, modernization, dependency, and world systems theories, and argues that the most capacious and dynamic model continues to be historical materialism. The volume presents a broad outline of global development through time, analysing primitive communism, lineage societies and the various kinds of tributary modes, and providing a closer examination of capitalism in terms of the phases and forms of its past and present. The author defends the centrality of structural Marxism to theories of global development and argues that its ideas can be furthered by the partial synthesis of other perspectives, such as the feminist critique. This book assumes no previous knowledge of the theories surveyed. It introduces complex material in an understandable form and will be valuable both to development professionals and to anyone interested in societal change.

A trenchant analysis of "global" capitalism shows how this economic theory and practice became a world-wide phenomenon with the advent of mass communications and sophisticated technology.

2009 Best Book, International Political Economy Group of the British International Studies Association This ambitious volume chronicles and analyzes from a critical globalization perspective the social, economic, and political changes sweeping across Latin America from the 1970s through the present day. Sociologist William I. Robinson summarizes his theory of globalization and discusses how Latin America’s political economy has changed as the states integrate into the new global production and financial system, focusing specifically on the rise of nontraditional agricultural exports, the explosion of maquiladoras, transnational tourism, and the export of labor and the import of remittances. He follows with an overview of the clash among global capitalist forces, neoliberalism, and the new left in Latin America, looking closely at the challenges and dilemmas resistance movements face and their prospects for success. Through three case studies—the struggles of the region's indigenous peoples, the immigrants rights movement in the United States, and the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela—Robinson documents and explains the causes of regional socio-political tensions, provides a theoretical framework for understanding the present turbulence, and suggests possible outcomes to the conflicts. Based on years of fieldwork and empirical research, this study elucidates the tensions that globalization has created and shows why Latin America is a battleground for those seeking to shape the twenty-first century’s world order.

Sure to stir controversy and debate, A Theory of Global Capitalism will be of interest to sociologists and economists alike.

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Fiscal crises have cascaded across much of the developing world with devastating results, from Mexico to Indonesia, Russia and Argentina. The extreme volatility in contemporary political economic fortunes seems to mock our best efforts to understand the forces that drive development in the world economy. David Harvey is the single most important geographer writing today and a leading social theorist of our age, offering a comprehensive critique of contemporary capitalism. In this fascinating book, he shows the way forward for just such an understanding, enlarging upon the key themes in his recent work: the development of neoliberalism, the spread of inequalities across the globe, and ‘space’ as a key theoretical concept. Both a major declaration of a new research programme and a concise introduction to David Harvey’s central concerns, this book will be essential reading for scholars and students across the humanities and social sciences.