A frustrating book. The author requires extensive background information on his own works as well as others in this genre. Not for the novice. ( )

Overall a good book, one people should read.
Two criticisms, however: first, it feels like it was written too quickly, or not edited aggressively enough.
Second, you're often left wondering what the other side of the story is--it feels as if Saul has left arguments out, not considered the other side, etc. Also his use of stats and numbers sometimes leaves something to be desired (e.g. mentioning increases in the number of people living below the poverty line without taking into account increases in population). ( )

Globalization, like many great geopolitical ideologies before it, is now officially dead. Despite the near-religious conviction with which it was originally conceived, a growing vagueness now surrounds its original promise that nation states were heading toward irrelevance, to be replaced by the power of global markets; that economics, not politics or arms, would determine the course of human events; that growth in international trade would foster prosperous markets that would, in turn, abolish poverty and change dictatorships into democracies.

Yet, contends Saul, little has transpired as predicted. The collapse of Globalism has left us struggling in a paradox — a chaotic vacuum. Instead of surrendering or sharing sovereignty, governments and citizens are reasserting their national interests. The United States appears determined to ignore its international critics. Europe is faced with problems of immigration, racism, terrorism and renewed internal nationalism. Many of these issues call for uniquely European solutions born out of local experiences and needs. Elsewhere, the world looks for answers to African debt, the AIDS epidemic, the return of fundamentalism and terrorism, all of which perversely refuse to disappear despite the theoretical rise in global prosperity.

In addition to the negative aspects of Globalism, Saul also objectively analyzes its successes, such as the astonishing growth in world trade and the unexpected rise of India and China, which seem slated to become twenty-first-century superpowers.

http://www.penguin.ca/nf/Book/BookDis... ( )

A truly perceptive book in which Saul links together very different strands of economic thinking to come up with a picture of our society today. An inspiring thinker, Saul discusses how globaslisation is based on a faulty premise, that once implemented, we would see the decline in importance of the nation State. The market would take over. He shows that, in fact, globalisation has entrenched the nation State and increased nationalism to the point where globalisation has failed. People are beginning to realise its faulty promises of prosperity and freedom for all and are reverting to the nationstate behaviour of the late 19th century. ( )