Globalization—The Return of Borders to a Borderless World?

Written by two leading scholars of global politics, Globalization: the return of borders to a borderless world? is a major new book for students of globalization. It describes and explains globalization and its origins, and examines its future in light of key recent political and global trends and events.
The text:

identifies the different political, economic, technological, and cultural meanings of globalization
examines its historical origins from the ancient past through the Cold War and into the twenty-first century
describes the multiple attributes and consequences of globalization including its effect on the sovereignty of the nation state
discusses recent trends such as the increased use of social media and events like the Arab Spring
assesses the normative implications of globalization
analyzes the challenges to globalization posed by contemporary events such as the global financial crisis.


This book will be essential reading for all students of globalization, and will be of great interest to students of global politics and global governance.

Yale H. Ferguson is Professorial Fellow and former Co-Director of the Division of Global Affairs, Rutgers University-Newark; and Honorary Professor, University of Salzburg, Austria. He is a Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, and has been a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, and the University of Padova, as well as Fulbright Professor at Salzburg.
Richard W. Mansbach served as political science chair at Rutgers University-New Brunswick and Iowa State University, and is currently Professor of Political Science at ISU. Formerly a Marshall Scholar, he has received three Fulbright fellowships—to Singapore, Seoul, and Vienna.
Books Ferguson and Mansbach have co-authored are The Web of Global Politics: Nonstate Actors in the Global System (1976), The Elusive Quest: Theory and International Politics (1989), The State, Conceptual Chaos and the Future of International Relations Theory (1989), Polities: Authority, Identities, and Change (1996), The Elusive Quest Continues: Theory and Global Politics (2003), Remapping Global Politics: History’s Revenge and Future Shock (2004), and A World of Polities: Essays on Global Politics (2008).

Introduction. 1. What is Globalization? 2. Globalization in Historical Perspective 3. Essentials of Globalization 4. Globalization and Information and Communication Technologies 5. The Global versus the Local 6. The Normative Implications of Globalization 7. Regional Dynamics: Europe and Asia 8. Regional Dynamics: Russia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa 9. Two Steps Forward, One Step Back? 10. The Balance Sheet