A debate is taking place over what values should define the international order. For global elites, it is a debate about how to rule the world: a conflict between one vision of global order based on U.S. empire and another based on an expanding, corporate-controlled global economy. These visions are not entirely distinct. How to Rule the World explains how they overlap and also how, at critical moments, they clash with one another. The book is written, however, not from the perspective of power, but from the perspective of those who believe the world should be governed according to principles of democratic participation and self-determination. Mark Engler explains how the Bush administration has reshaped globalization in ways that will affect us for years to come. Such changes have created a setting that few protesters in Seattle or elsewhere could have foreseen: Global trade talks are collapsing. International institutions that drew protests, like the IMF and the World Bank, face uncertain futures. Moreover, U.S. unilateralism has created international divides that endanger the future progress of the type of multilateral globalization that thrived throughout the 1990s.
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"As the world readies to heave a collective sigh of relief upon George W. Bush's exit from the White House, How to Rule the World is a caution against complacency. Mark Engler offers a timely reminder that before Bush's boots and bombs there was Clinton's corporate 'consensus'--more soothing perhaps but no more sustainable than the neocons' disastrous militarism. He then makes a case that there lies a third choice: democracy. Impressively researched and sharply argued, How to Rule the World is an essential handbook not for the few who do rule the world but for the many who should." -- Greg Grandin, author of Empire's Workshop
"Fasten your seatbelt. You're in for a ride that will change your understanding of where we've been, what's really going on now, and what's coming next. Mark Engler explores, for the first time, the emerging battle between 'corporate globalization' and 'imperial globalization'- and the alternative, 'democratic globalization, or globalization from below.' If you want to know 'what ever happened to the anti-globalization movement,' why it is likely to roar back as a powerful force in world politics, and why it may make another world possible, don't miss this unique and indispensable guide." -- Jeremy Brecher, author of Strike!, Global Village or Global Pillage, and Globalization from Below
"Full of passion, hope, and insight, How to Rule the World assures us that the future of globalization is not a foregone conclusion. Rejecting both the imperial behemoth and the leviathan of corporate rule, Mark Engler weaves disparate movements and burgeoning efforts in far flung corners of the globe together to show the strong, tensile strands of a democratic alternative--a globalization from below that has the power to shape the post-Bush era." -- Frida Berrigan, New America Foundation, Arms and Security Initiative
"This is one of the most hopeful and challenging progressive books to be written in a long time. Global elites, it turns out, are no more cohesive than, say, the crime families of New York, and perhaps a good deal less so. As the fault lines among those who have ruled the world for the past few decades become ever more clear, the time is upon us to finally follow up on Seattle and to bring democracy home. Never was a book more timely." -- Andy Bichlbaum, THE YES MEN
"Fasten your seatbelt. You're in for a ride that will change your understanding of where we've been, what's really going on now, and what's coming next. Mark Engler explores, for the first time, the emerging battle between 'corporate globalization' and 'imperial globalization'- and the alternative, 'democratic globalization, or globalization from below.' If you want to know 'what ever happened to the anti-globalization movement,' why it is likely to roar back as a powerful force in world politics, and why it may make another world possible, don't miss this unique and indispensable guide." -- Jeremy Brecher, author of Strike!, Global Village or Global Pillage, and Globalization from Below
"Full of passion, hope, and insight, How to Rule the World assures us that the future of globalization is not a foregone conclusion. Rejecting both the imperial behemoth and the leviathan of corporate rule, Mark Engler weaves disparate movements and burgeoning efforts in far flung corners of the globe together to show the strong, tensile strands of a democratic alternative--a globalization from below that has the power to shape the post-Bush era." -- Frida Berrigan, New America Foundation, Arms and Security Initiative
"This is one of the most hopeful and challenging progressive books to be written in a long time. Global elites, it turns out, are no more cohesive than, say, the crime families of New York, and perhaps a good deal less so. As the fault lines among those who have ruled the world for the past few decades become ever more clear, the time is upon us to finally follow up on Seattle and to bring democracy home. Never was a book more timely." -- Andy Bichlbaum, THE YES MEN
About the Author
Mark Engler is a journalist based in New York City and an analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus. His articles have appeared in Newsday, the San Francisco Chronicle, Dissent, TomPaine.com, the Christian Science Monitor, TomDispatch, Salon.com, In These Times, and MotherJones.com.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is both terrific and important -- crisply written, sophisticated but accessible, and extremely valuable for progressives in the United States who want to reanimate the global justice movement here.
First and foremost, Engler persuasively argues that the Bush administration has pursued a policy of unilateralist, nationalistic, and militarized "imperial globalization" that differs from the "corporate globalization" model of the Clinton years. Doing so, Engler pleads that we recognize differences of opinion and strategy -- and the opportunities these fissures and tensions create -- among global elites. The key question Engler poses is: as the Bush model runs aground, will we simply go back to the globalization of the 80s and 90s, or can there be alternatives? A lot of evidence suggests that there is a real chance to develop alternatives: many Democrats now oppose neo-liberal free trade; more importantly, there has been, in the years since 9-11, a tremendous rollback of neo-liberalism in the Global South. Engler educates us about these alternatives, and challenges us to revitalize the global justice movement based on an informed understanding of recent trends, crises within the pro-globalization community, and the activism in the Global South.
Written with the precision of a scholar, the flair of a journalist, and the heart of an activist, this book is vital reading for so many communities: academics, policy makers, activists, and anyone who wants an up-to-date account of the state of the global economy. I can't recommend it more strongly.
Jeremy Varon
First and foremost, Engler persuasively argues that the Bush administration has pursued a policy of unilateralist, nationalistic, and militarized "imperial globalization" that differs from the "corporate globalization" model of the Clinton years. Doing so, Engler pleads that we recognize differences of opinion and strategy -- and the opportunities these fissures and tensions create -- among global elites. The key question Engler poses is: as the Bush model runs aground, will we simply go back to the globalization of the 80s and 90s, or can there be alternatives? A lot of evidence suggests that there is a real chance to develop alternatives: many Democrats now oppose neo-liberal free trade; more importantly, there has been, in the years since 9-11, a tremendous rollback of neo-liberalism in the Global South. Engler educates us about these alternatives, and challenges us to revitalize the global justice movement based on an informed understanding of recent trends, crises within the pro-globalization community, and the activism in the Global South.
Written with the precision of a scholar, the flair of a journalist, and the heart of an activist, this book is vital reading for so many communities: academics, policy makers, activists, and anyone who wants an up-to-date account of the state of the global economy. I can't recommend it more strongly.
Jeremy Varon
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Mr. Engler describes the efforts of the greatest economic engine in the world (still), known to many as the United States, to determine and control the future of developing countries, whether by cloaked capitalism (Clinton-Blair third way neo-liberalism) or fiat (G.W.Bush aka Teddy Roosevelt). But, as he documents, that effort is failing, whatever its motivation, as the United States loses control not only of its economic fiefdoms in South and Latin America but of its own population, as its efforts to control the world incur domestic debt and keep its own middle class stagnant and the poor yet more impoverished. Like the history of its predecessors, the British, French, Dutch and Flemish empires, it is a modern ride on the Appian Way with the real reasons for the fall of the empire explained, unlike that other book which explained every battle of the Roman Empire but left the reader wondering why it actually failed. As with Americans, new to this outcome, the Brits and others have yet to acknowledge their diminished, yet mostly comfortable status as now just a nation. But Americans, unused to their diminished supermacy, are certainly feeling its effects.
Mr Engler looks at the details, the intracacies of finance and their implications for the target countries, but his thesis is the nature of a changing world where economic development and, moreover, its native control, in the Southern American hemisphere (Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Boliva, Cuba) engenders independence and dooms (despite the WTO and the World Bank) a century of American hegemony. His discussion of debt cancellation, the H&R Block of international finance, more than his other examples, reveals the vulnerability of North American attempts to control fledgling South American governments. While Engler's focus is the popular movements in Central and South America, he does consider the East, never under the American thumb, but quarantined by the West, with China now holding most of America's debt the United States incurrs trying to keep its power everywhere. Our economic dependence upon the East that the Unites States has never had to entertain in a marketplace it had always exploited, but now readily accepts, whatever the consequences, as long as a buck can be made does not bode well for capital owners of the homeland. Oh, it must make those bulwarks of British Imperialism, the last vultures of the underdeveloped world, just shudder the thought of those despicable yellow people in implicit control. They and we can commisserate over our oriental tea.
Oh, you can bet there will be consequences. And Engler, knowing that the closer one gets to an issue, the more one loses the luxury of unbridled ideology, takes issue with the conclusions of commentators and analysts, both right and left, providing a studied guide to where the road may lead in the deep, deep woods of the twenty-first century.
Mr Engler looks at the details, the intracacies of finance and their implications for the target countries, but his thesis is the nature of a changing world where economic development and, moreover, its native control, in the Southern American hemisphere (Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Boliva, Cuba) engenders independence and dooms (despite the WTO and the World Bank) a century of American hegemony. His discussion of debt cancellation, the H&R Block of international finance, more than his other examples, reveals the vulnerability of North American attempts to control fledgling South American governments. While Engler's focus is the popular movements in Central and South America, he does consider the East, never under the American thumb, but quarantined by the West, with China now holding most of America's debt the United States incurrs trying to keep its power everywhere. Our economic dependence upon the East that the Unites States has never had to entertain in a marketplace it had always exploited, but now readily accepts, whatever the consequences, as long as a buck can be made does not bode well for capital owners of the homeland. Oh, it must make those bulwarks of British Imperialism, the last vultures of the underdeveloped world, just shudder the thought of those despicable yellow people in implicit control. They and we can commisserate over our oriental tea.
Oh, you can bet there will be consequences. And Engler, knowing that the closer one gets to an issue, the more one loses the luxury of unbridled ideology, takes issue with the conclusions of commentators and analysts, both right and left, providing a studied guide to where the road may lead in the deep, deep woods of the twenty-first century.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By L. Pack
Format:Paperback
With not much to add to the other reviews, this book has great depth and gives insightul knowledge of how the war in Iraq as well as The battle against the WTO, World Bank and IMF, needs to be thought out differently.
The author doesn't spend his time attacking or belittling some of the common held views of the left, he simply adds to the argument, a refreshing thing when several books on the above subjects just keep repeating the same ideas. I highly recomend this book, if only for the chapter on Thomas Friedman. Another book to read is Jeff Faux's "The Global Class War" which is quoted in this book a few times.
The author doesn't spend his time attacking or belittling some of the common held views of the left, he simply adds to the argument, a refreshing thing when several books on the above subjects just keep repeating the same ideas. I highly recomend this book, if only for the chapter on Thomas Friedman. Another book to read is Jeff Faux's "The Global Class War" which is quoted in this book a few times.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
We Need a Clear Vision of Democratic Globalization
Mark Engler looks toward a third way, a democratic way, toward globalization, to replace the corporate way of the Clinton years and the imperial way of the Bush years. Read more
Published on April 24, 2009 by Richard H. Burkhart
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb on every conceivable level
The specifics of the book have been covered in previous reviews, so I won't belabor them. Just want to note my agreement that this book is excellent. Read more
Published on February 16, 2009 by Brian Mcneil
5.0 out of 5 stars
Potholes in the Road to Democracy
Has government become superfluous? Should the populace cede control to corporate culture and lobbyist (the dread military-industrial complex). Read more
Published on December 3, 2008 by Ted Magnuson
5.0 out of 5 stars
Important Reading for Changing Times
Engler's ideas are intelligent, interesting, and extremely relevant. His style is very clear and accessible. Read more
Published on June 12, 2008 by A D B Jorgensen Briggs
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