Developing Societies in a Changing World offers students a concise and accessible exploration of our developing world. Readers learn about globalization, the interconnected nature of our world, and how these connections influence our daily lives. Through the presentation of key concepts, theoretical frameworks, examples, case studies, illustrations, figures, and tables, the text demonstrates how all individuals are actors in both the localized and globalized world.
In the Fourth Edition of Cultures and Societies in a Changing World, author Wendy Griswold illuminates how culture shapes our social world and how society shapes culture. She helps students gain an understanding of the sociology of culture and explore stories, beliefs, media, ideas, art, religious practices, fashions, and rituals from a sociological perspective. Cultural examples from multiple countries and time periods will broaden students′ global understanding. They will develop a deeper appreciation of culture and society, gleaning insights that will help them overcome cultural misunderstandings, conflicts, and ignorance; equip them to be more effective in their professional and personal lives, and become wise citizens of the world.
Developing Societies in a Changing World offers students a concise and accessible exploration of our developing and developed world. Readers learn about the origins of development, modernity, globalization, population dynamics and the increasingly interconnected nature of our world with the environment and how these connections influence our daily lives. The opening chapters present students with basic concepts and empirical findings regarding development and the organization of the developed and developing world. The following chapters provide a chronological sequence of capitalist world development, beginning with the advent of colonialism, the rise of modern nation-states, and modern economies that formed the post-colonial era. The influence of modernity on prosperity and poverty leads into an overview of globalization and into the current restructuring of the global economy known as multipolar globalization. Students are also exposed to the dynamic relationship between population growth and well-being. The concluding chapter provides a detailed and comprehensive assessment of climate change, ranging from climate physics and social impacts to international policy efforts and ends with a close examination of proposed solutions to the planetary crisis. The second edition features content changes in every chapter to bring the material up to date. New topics addressed include zoonosis and COVID-19, the social impacts of COVID-19, the Sustainable Development agenda (2015-2030), state-building in Africa, patronage in Cambodia, resettlement in Tanzania, autocratic governance, and democratic internationalism. In particular, the concluding chapter has been significantly revised to reflect the growing magnitude of climate change and intertwined social impacts. The volume concludes with a twofold examination that contrasts market and technological strategies for addressing climate change with that of the climate justice movement. Designed to help students develop a greater understanding of the world and the environment that shapes it, Developing Societies in a Changing World is ideal for introductory courses with focus on developing societies and globalization.
“A superb new understanding of the dynamic economy as a learning society, one that goes well beyond the usual treatment of education, training, and R&D.”—Robert Kuttner, author of The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy Since its publication Creating a Learning Society has served as an effective tool for those who advocate government policies to advance science and technology. It shows persuasively how enormous increases in our standard of living have been the result of learning how to learn, and it explains how advanced and developing countries alike can model a new learning economy on this example. Creating a Learning Society: Reader’s Edition uses accessible language to focus on the work’s central message and policy prescriptions. As the book makes clear, creating a learning society requires good governmental policy in trade, industry, intellectual property, and other important areas. The text’s central thesis—that every policy affects learning—is critical for governments unaware of the innovative ways they can propel their economies forward. “Profound and dazzling. In their new book, Joseph E. Stiglitz and Bruce C. Greenwald study the human wish to learn and our ability to learn and so uncover the processes that relate the institutions we devise and the accompanying processes that drive the production, dissemination, and use of knowledge . . . This is social science at its best.”—Partha Dasgupta, University of Cambridge “An impressive tour de force, from the theory of the firm all the way to long-term development, guided by the focus on knowledge and learning . . . This is an ambitious book with far-reaching policy implications.”—Giovanni Dosi, director, Institute of Economics, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna “[A] sweeping work of macroeconomic theory.”—Harvard Business Review
Developing Societies in a Changing World offers students a concise and accessible exploration of our developing world. Readers learn about globalization, the interconnected nature of our world, and how these connections influence our daily lives. Through the presentation of key concepts, theoretical frameworks, examples, case studies, illustrations, figures, and tables, the text demonstrates how all individuals are actors in both the localized and globalized world. The opening chapters present students with basic concepts and empirical findings regarding development and the organization of the developed and developing world. The following chapters provide a chronological sequence of capitalist world development, discussing the advent of colonialism, the nation-states and modern economies that formed post-colonialism, the influence of modernity on prosperity and poverty, and an overview of globalization. Students learn about the relationship between population growth and well-being, the interplay of culture and the environment, and current real-world issues that are bringing about global social change. Designed to help students develop a greater understanding of the world and the environment that shapes it, Developing Societies in a Changing World is ideal for introductory courses with focus on developing societies and globalization.
Social change affects all quarters of life and human society whether in individual neighbourhoods, communities or nations, or in the world as a whole – encompassing many issues of gender, age, social class and ethnicity. This book examines both the conceptual as well as operational aspects of social transformation and social development. It examines societal transformation at the individual, group, community, national and international levels using a range of case studies from Singapore, Asia and around the world. The four parts of this book highlight the challenges of social development; issues concerning workforce and migration; welfare, women and social care; as well as, community development and capacity building. Social development and social transformation are presented as intertwined concepts that affect citizens in profound ways from social care to social well-being, construction of social relationship as well as community life, capacity building and nation building.
________________ As seen on Sky News All Out Politics ‘There’s no understanding global inequality without understanding its history. In The Divide, Jason Hickel brilliantly lays it out, layer upon layer, until you are left reeling with the outrage of it all.’ - Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics · The richest eight people control more wealth than the poorest half of the world combined. · Today, 60 per cent of the world’s population lives on less than $5 a day. · Though global real GDP has nearly tripled since 1980, 1.1 billion more people are now living in poverty. For decades we have been told a story: that development is working, that poverty is a natural phenomenon and will be eradicated through aid by 2030. But just because it is a comforting tale doesn’t make it true. Poor countries are poor because they are integrated into the global economic system on unequal terms, and aid only helps to hide this. Drawing on pioneering research and years of first-hand experience, The Divide tracks the evolution of global inequality – from the expeditions of Christopher Columbus to the present day – offering revelatory answers to some of humanity’s greatest problems. It is a provocative, urgent and ultimately uplifting account of how the world works, and how it can change for the better.
A Frenchman rents a Hollywood movie. A Thai schoolgirl mimics Madonna. Saddam Hussein chooses Frank Sinatra's "My Way" as the theme song for his fifty-fourth birthday. It is a commonplace that globalization is subverting local culture. But is it helping as much as it hurts? In this strikingly original treatment of a fiercely debated issue, Tyler Cowen makes a bold new case for a more sympathetic understanding of cross-cultural trade. Creative Destruction brings not stale suppositions but an economist's eye to bear on an age-old question: Are market exchange and aesthetic quality friends or foes? On the whole, argues Cowen in clear and vigorous prose, they are friends. Cultural "destruction" breeds not artistic demise but diversity. Through an array of colorful examples from the areas where globalization's critics have been most vocal, Cowen asks what happens when cultures collide through trade, whether technology destroys native arts, why (and whether) Hollywood movies rule the world, whether "globalized" culture is dumbing down societies everywhere, and if national cultures matter at all. Scrutinizing such manifestations of "indigenous" culture as the steel band ensembles of Trinidad, Indian handweaving, and music from Zaire, Cowen finds that they are more vibrant than ever--thanks largely to cross-cultural trade. For all the pressures that market forces exert on individual cultures, diversity typically increases within society, even when cultures become more like each other. Trade enhances the range of individual choice, yielding forms of expression within cultures that flower as never before. While some see cultural decline as a half-empty glass, Cowen sees it as a glass half-full with the stirrings of cultural brilliance. Not all readers will agree, but all will want a say in the debate this exceptional book will stir.
Contrary to the common view that globalization undermines social agency, ‘alter-globalization activists', that is, those who contest globalization in its neo-liberal form, have developed new ways to become actors in the global age. They propose alternatives to Washington Consensus policies, implement horizontal and participatory organization models and promote a nascent global public space. Rather than being anti-globalization, these activists have built a truly global movement that has gathered citizens, committed intellectuals, indigenous, farmers, dalits and NGOs against neoliberal policies in street demonstrations and Social Forums all over the world, from Bangalore to Seattle and from Porto Alegre to Nairobi. This book analyses this worldwide movement on the bases of extensive field research conducted since 1999. Alter-Globalization provides a comprehensive account of these critical global forces and their attempts to answer one of the major challenges of our time: How can citizens and civil society contribute to the building of a fairer, sustainable and more democratic co-existence of human beings in a global world?
