Globaloney: Unraveling the Myths of Globalization [Paperback]

Michael Veseth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 9, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0742536599 | ISBN-13: 978-0742536593

What's the truth about globalization . . . and what's just 'globaloney?' Michael Veseth believes that much of what students understand about globalization is really globaloney-bombast built on a few vivid images and exceptional cases that distort more than they reveal about the world around us. Globaloney separates rhetoric from reality by snapping close-ups of the classic globalization images and comparing them with unexpected alternative visions that resonate with culturally savvy college-aged readers. Do Michael Jordan and Nike really define globalization? Why not David Beckham and World Cup soccer? Is globalization McDonalds and McWorld? Why isn't the global wine market a better metaphor? And what can we learn about how globalization works at the grassroots by comparing the elitist, publicity-hungry Slow Food movement with the massive but virtually invisible international trade in worn and wrinkled second-hand clothes? Veseth convincingly explains how all globalization is local, why the French so love to hate it, and what Adam Smith has to do with it. The book shows why it is dangerous to generalize about globalization and, through its wealth of examples, demonstrates that globalization is not one big thing but many different yet related, particular things. An ideal supplement for courses on international political economy and international relations, Globaloney is an irreverent but important look at how globalization really works.

Editorial Reviews

Review

In Globaloney, Michael Veseth achieves a rare combination: he conveys important economic arguments in a vivid and highly entertaining style. For anyone trying to assess the goods and bads of headlong progress toward a global economy, and trying to sort bogus fears from genuine reasons for concern, this book is a great place to start. (Fallows, James )

With his customary verve, Michael Veseth has launched a passionate broadside against what he calls the 'myths' of globalization. Not everyone will agree with his unorthodox views; many will be provoked. But this book deserves to reach a wide audience. In a style both witty and easily accessible, Veseth uses familiar elements of popular culture to challenge conventional thinking. Readers will feast on Globaloney. (Benjamin J. Cohen )

Michael Veseth's Globaloney is the perfect down-to-earth primer for undergraduates trying to understand the debate over globalization. By focusing on commodities within every student's reach—baloney, Michael Jordan, and soccer balls—Veseth transparently links abstract global processes to real life. (Herman Schwartz )

Here's a book to break the spell cast by simplistic economic creeds from both left and right. If you want to make fresh discoveries about the global marketplace, Michael Veseth is your man. Don't let his lively, informal prose style fool you. He has a scientist's keen nose for tracking what's true back to its native lair: that wild thicket of fact where prevailing theory just won't fit. (Howard Cutler )

This book presents a novel and engaging critical analysis that incorporates insights from political economy into a story that will appeal to a wide readership. (Wiener, Jarrod )

Michael Veseth has written an accessible book that focuses on the inherent complexity of globalization. With clear language, gentle wit, and incisive logic, Veseth skewers the simple myths we like to believe about the interconnectedness of the world around us. However, Globaloney is more than just an aid to clear thinking, and complexity is hardly a virtue in its own right. Veseth's real aim is to help us better understand the many and conflicting ways that globalization touches on different societies and individuals. Understanding his argument is a necessary first step in the development of a 21st-century worldview. (Jones, Erik )

Michael Veseth continues his amiable progress through the enchanted, topsy-turvy world of contemporary economic mythology. A real economist with an observant mind, he provides a series of suave and charming tales from his travels through the real world—stories whose subjects range from Adam Smith to Michael Jordan, from soccer to the French, from mediocre mass food to global good wine. Skillfully blended together, these chase away the goblins of globaloney and leave us with a nicer world than we had thought. (Calleo, David P. )

Michael Veseth's imaginative account of the varieties of globalization demands the attention of both scholars and students of the world economy. Through original case studies and deeply informed analyses, Veseth presents a fresh picture of a refreshingly diverse and serendipitous globalization. While the media, activists and policymakers generally paint globalization with a single brush, Veseth draws on a broad palette to puncture popular myths and promotes critical thinking. Globaloney is an important new work that advances our understanding of globalization and its effect on society and culture as well as business and finance. (G. Pascal Zachary )

Engaging, illuminating, and thought-provoking. (International Review Of Modern Sociology )

Using a term coined by Clare Boothe Luce in 1943 for Vice President Henry Wallace's foreign policy, Veseth critiques today's rhetoric of globalization. He uses case studies and economic concepts to help readers understand globalization's basis in finance and its many complications. Recommended particularly for academic libraries supporting programs in business and economics; libraries should consider purchasing Veseth's previous work as well. Both titles aim to have readers 'think out of the box' when it comes to the concept of globalization. With a valuable extensive bibliography. (Library Journal )

This book is destined to please many readers. (P. K. Kresl Choice )

Michael Veseth's entertaining book is written for a more general audience than standard academic texts and as such represents an attempt to engage the mythology and the rhetoric of globalisation on its own ground. Most interestingly, perhaps, Veseth chooses to take on some of globalisation's harshest critics, suggesting that they are as guilty of conjuring up myths to serve particular claims about the world as are their opponents in the pro-globalisation camp. Veseth's prose is eminently readable while being grounded with solid empirical findings. Globaloney should prove to be of great use in the classroom. (Political Studies Review )

A lively and informative textbook that brings to life the real meaning of globalization. The author is neither a cheerleader for nor a crusader against globalization. He simply seeks to explain this concept and its various manifestations in an objective fashion. (Nader Entessar )

Veseth . . . succeeds in debunking conventional wisdoms, and his digressions on such subjects as the international wine trade and French snobbery are entertaining. (Washington Post Book World )

About the Author

Michael Veseth is Michael Veseth is the Robert G. Albertson Professor of International Political Economy at the University of Puget Sound and author of many books that approach national and global issues from innovative and controversial angles, including Selling Globalization and Mountains of Debt, the latter of which was reviewed in The New York Times Book Review and The Economist. Veseth is the founding director of the international political economy program at Puget Sound and an academic advisor to the interactive educational website for the PBS/WGBH series, 'Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy.' He lives in Tacoma, Washington and lectures widely.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (March 9, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0742536599
• ISBN-13: 978-0742536593
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.8 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,573,469 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mike Veseth (pronounced VEE-seth) is editor of The Wine Economist blog and author of more than a dozen books including best-selling Wine Wars: The Curse of the Blue Nun, the Miracle of Two Buck Chuck and the Revenge of the Terroirists (2011).

About Wine Wars

Wine Wars is a tale of curses, miracles and revenge. It tells the story of the market forces that are redrawing the world wine map and the terroirists who oppose them. The book has received critical praise and was named (along with Benjamin Lewin's In Search of Pinot Noir) 2011 Wine Book of the Year by the team at JancisRobinson.com.

Wine Wars also received the silver medal in ForeWord Review's 2011 Business & Economics Book of the Year awards and was selected Best American Wine History Book 2011 by Gourmand International. The book jacket won first prize in the commercial publisher division at the Washington Book Publishers Design Awards. Click here to read a selection of reviews. Click here to view the list of Wine Wars World Tour speaking events.

Mike is currently working on his next book, Extreme Wine, which will be published in late 2013. A paperback edition of Wine Wars is scheduled for released in December 2012.

About The Wine Economist blog

What do you get when you cross the Wine Spectator, America's best-selling wine magazine, with the Economist, the world's leading business weekly? The answer is the widely read industry blog, The Wine Economist, which analyzes and interprets today's global wine markets.

Academic Background

Mike is the Robert G. Albertson Professor of International Political Economy at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, where he has taught since 1975. He is an authority on the political economy of globalization and the global wine market. Mike has also taught at the American Institute on Political and Economic Systems (Prague, 2005, 2006) and at the Bologna Center of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (Bologna, Italy, 1997). He was Academic Advisor to the award winning educational website for the PBS/WGBH series, The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy (2002).

Mike has received many honors and awards; most recently he was named Washington Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. His 2005 book, Globaloney, was named a Best Business Book of 2005 by Library Journal. Mike earned the B.A. degree in Economics and Mathematics from the University of Puget Sound (1972) and the M.S.(1974) and Ph.D. (1975) degrees in Economics from Purdue University.

Selected Publications

Wine Wars: The Curse of the Blue Nun, the Miracle of Two Buck Chuck and the Revenge of the Terroirists. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2011, 2012).
Globaloney 2.0: The Crash of 2008 and the Future of Globalization. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2010).
Globaloney: Unraveling the Myths of Globalization (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005),
The New York Times's Review of the 20th Century: The Rise of the Global Economy (Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2002),
Selling Globalization: The Myth of the Global Economy (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998) and
Mountains of Debt: Crisis and Change in Renaissance Florence, Victorian Britain, and Postwar America (Oxford University Press, 1990).
Mike has also authored or co-authored innovative university textbooks in the fields of Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Public Finance and International Political Economy.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An attack on rhetoric, not on globalization January 12, 2008

By M. Stevens

Format:Paperback

Mike Veseth's book is organized into a set of eight essays about different subjects on globalization and how their rhetoric effects the debate of globalization. Mike (I'm a former student, so I can call him that) takes great pains argue that the those who oppose globalization use rhetorical devices that hammer home their point, even if there is no real point. They present images and cleverly drawn descriptions and anecdotes that help prove the point, but careful study of the anecdote proves them not so universal as a descriptor of globalization.

Mike's eight chapters focus on different case studies that have been used in the past to describe globalization, particularly its negative effects. Each of the chapters is particularly interesting, and chapters 3-8 all stand up by themselves as independent essay that attack current thinking about globalization's effects on countries and individuals. The best two chapters in the book are 4 and 5, about football (not the American kind) and wine.

Mike is obviously the most interested in these two because he did the most work for these, and his work reflects his interest well. He is now working on a full length book on Globalization and wine; I can't wait for that. Mike spends Chapter 3 knocking down the thesis that basketball is an example of globalization, as it has spread out from America, especially since the Dream Team in the Olympics of 1992. Mike argues in Ch3 that basketball was already everywhere across the world from the YMCA spreading it but after 1992, it opened up.

He takes Ch4 to argue that soccer is a much better phenomenon to explain globalization, because it is truly global and penetrating into all forms of life international, well, except the US. It is because it is not a spectator sport in the US that Americans refuse to acknowledge its prevalence and it is truly the most dominant sport.

Mike's chapter about wine is simply fantastic. Basically, he argues that globalization of the wine industry has both created winners and losers. It has drive some companies out of business, but created new industries in places where no one was sure if they could survive. He particularly goes into the development of the New Zealand wine industry and how because they have come to the forefront of the wine stage.

Mike uses all of these different case studies to argue that globalization isn't necessarily a good or a bad thing, it simply is. Globalization does create winners and it does create losers. The losers usually are inferior products that can't compete. But sometimes they are regional products that perhaps have qualities that make them important. He points out that if they do, usually they have defenders that use globalization techniques (market them to new markets) to keep them alive.

In conclusion, (he'll hate me for using that phrase) Mike's book is fantastic if you are looking for great review of globalization and some amazingly interesting facts about both sides of the debate. If you want someone to draw a conclusion for you, well, then you are out of luck getting it from a professor who plays devil's advocate more in class than anything else.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars As promised August 16, 2009

By C. Chapman

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

The item delivered arrived on time as promised and was in great condition! Excellent buyer. Thanks!!!

3 of 9 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but tries too hard to be fair to pro-globalization interests October 29, 2005

By Paula L. Craig VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

The main thrust of this book is that both pro-globalization and anti-globalization interests tend to use overheated arguments not supported by much in the way of evidence. The book succeeds quite well at this and I recommend it on that basis.

The book doesn't address what in my opinion are the main reasons why globalization is a problem. The truth is that globalization is simply a fantasy based on cheap oil. Globalization is popular because the problems associated with the global production and transport of cheap goods, such as pollution and depletion of resources, are easier to ignore when the problems themselves can be moved across international boundaries. (Who cares if those weird foreigners poison themselves or cut down their own forests?) Sadly, an economy in which ordinary food items and other basic necessities are shipped for thousands of miles between producer and consumer is not an economy with a long-term future. In this context, I think that quibbling over which side of the debate uses the most misleading metaphors and anecdotes is a little silly.

Veseth also seems to accept without question the idea that expansion of an economy is a good thing. Veseth spends much time discussing some of globalization's success stories, such as the New Zealand wine export business. Veseth sounds a note of caution here, as he mentions the overexpansion of New Zealand vineyards--the usual result of a big success in the global market. Veseth doesn't follow this up by questioning whether expansion of global markets is desirable at all. If you read this book, I would recommend pairing it with some others to provide more perspective, such as Daly's "Beyond Growth" and Kunstler's "The Long Emergency".