Falling off the Edge: Travels Through the Dark Heart of Globalization (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Time's Africa bureau chief, Perry belongs to a cadre of journalists who thrive in the thick of a war zone; he admits that his editor once commented that someone had died in the opening paragraph of every story I had written. Because he's seen so much, the book would have hit the mark had he fully probed the stories of his subjects, among them Indonesian pirates, Bombay's vacuous elite and a Muslim Indian terrorist who predicts a future of relentless violence. Unfortunately, his book is poorly organized and dizzyingly disjointed; he dissects the prodigious growth of Asian cities, jets north to comment on the reign of the Nepali king and flies south to interview a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber. The stories don't build to any concrete conclusion, individually or collectively. Perry is sincere but his analysis is simplistic; he dismisses the opinions of academics who haven't first traveled extensively in Asia and Africa and concludes China will make it because China's central government gets it while India looks a lot shakier. Perry's firsthand experience provides one necessary piece but not enough of the puzzle to construct an accurate picture of the consequences of globalization. (Oct.)
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Product Description

If the world is flat, as the prophets of globalization proclaim, then what happens on the underside? Alex Perry answers with this eye-opening journey through the planet's most dangerous hotspots 
 
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, international corporations, governments and Western pundits have embraced the idea of a global village: a shrinking, booming world in which everyone benefits. But what if the coming boom is an explosion?

Alex Perry, award-winning TIME correspondent, travels from the South China Sea to the highlands of Afghanistan to the Sahara—and observes globalization on the ground, instead of from the executive suite.

Perry takes readers to Shenzen, China's boom city where sweatshops pay under-age workers less than $4 a day; and to Bombay, where the gap between rich and poor means million-dollar apartments overlook million-people slums.  He shares a beer with Southeast Asian pirates who prey on the world's busiest shipping artery. And he puts us in the middle of a firefight between American Special Forces and the Taliban.

He shows that for every winner in our brave new world, there are tens of thousands of losers. And be they Chinese army veterans, Indian Maoist rebels or the Somali branch of al Qaeda, they are very, very angry.

Falling Off the Edge is a tour de force of frontline reporting, which reveals with alarming clarity that globalization, far from a planetary panacea, starts wars.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Press (November 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596915269
• ISBN-13: 978-1596915268
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #265,397 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent - The reality of the planet without the rose tinted glasses!, May 16, 2009

By	C. Mccourry (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

So many other writers have waxed on endlessly with how this "flat & globalized" world has allow countries like India and China entrance into a fantastic, almost limitless leap forward... thus giving the impression that within a few years these giants are almost guaranteed to gain a middle class like those of Europe.

Having just returned from Calcutta's international airport that contains ONLY one international departure gate within a setting that seems like an overexpanded 1960's high school classroom as a waiting area, small bathroom, only a little kiosk selling bottled water and candy bars... for a city of 14 million, one of the largest cities in the world!!! Where's the economic miracle in that? Somehow many of those writers were probably foggy with jet-lag as they zoomed over to the outsourcing company for their snappy outlooks...or only visited Shanghai and Bangalore to sketch out their ideas.

A narrow point-of-view does make the world look rather flat. Alex Perry's book widens the focus to show that a huge proportion of the planet is falling off the edge - which may turn out to be the REAL story in the upcoming years. I read somewhere that India's population is growing by about 150 million per decade, so even with the 1.5 million good paying outsourcing jobs created within the past decade, what jobs were created for the remaining 148 million souls? From the looks of Calcutta, it seems like a lot were falling off the edge, missing the globalization train completely. FALLING OFF THE EDGE provides some excellent counter-balance to the developing theories of what globalization may provide our world in the years ahead.

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read, May 2, 2009

By	Shirley Sacks (USA) - See all my reviews

Highly recommended. Another look at globalization, that will make you realize all is not what it seems.

5.0 out of 5 stars The planet's most dangerous political and social hot spots are reviewed by an award-winning correspondent, January 16, 2009

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

The planet's most dangerous political and social hot spots are reviewed by an award-winning correspondent who travels from China to Afghanistan to consider the effects of globalization on the ordinary person. His journeys around the world consider culture, politics, and the far-reaching effects of globalization strategies and influences on the common man, and makes for a blend of travelogue and social observation key not just for general-interest libraries strong in travel, but for college-level collections considering the social effects of globalization.