Customer Reviews

Losing Control? Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization

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Okay, so as a previous reviewer said, this is hardly the most dense and detailed study... but not every text needs to be. Sassen is one of the most brilliant thinkers working on the issues, contexts and problems of "globalization" today (no matter if you ultimately agree with her views or not, you cannot deny her grasp of the issues. She is a creative thinker not afraid to let her work show her growth as a scholar and practical worker on world issues.

This may not be her finest work, and it is not her most recent, but it is a great primer for those who want to understand the basics of the new "global" order(s) of things without resorting to "XYZ for Idiots/for Dummies" books. From here, you can go on to agree or disagree with her conclusions and predictions with a decent grasp of what is going on... so, in that sense, this is a fine book.

I was very much dissapointed by this book. She talks about "globalization", yet never shows exactly what she means by this, and most of her arguments rely on anecdotes.

Her argument goes like this; There's more overseas production, there are huge multi-nationals, and there's an international capital market, and then there are international issues that goes beyond the national boundaries. Therefore, the sovereign nation is losing power.

While these are all true, the most important question is; to what extent? She never adresses this, and so, the whole book amounts to not much than some trendy talk of "Oh the world is global now and everything's different". So, forget this book. There's nothing in this book that is not throughly and plainly explained by, say, Paul Krugman's "Pop Internationalism" or even his "Age of Diminished Expectations". These books provide much better value and information for our money.