Global Spin: Probing the Globalization Debate

Edelgard E. Mahant is a professor of political science at York
University and co-author of An Introduction to Canadian–American
Relations.

This book consists, in large part, of descriptions of the historical,
economic, and cultural aspects of globalization. On the analytical
front, it is less than successful. For example, in writing about the
future governance of a world apparently consisting of nation-states,
White cannot imagine anything more complex than a revamped United
Nations. He seems quite unaware that a network of transnational and
intergovernmental links is already making authoritative decisions that
affect all of us; the possibility of a nonterritorial governing system
does not appear to have occurred to him. Elsewhere he discusses
migrations and the increasing movement of people around the globe but
fails to address the backlash this has caused. Nor does he dare
speculate whether this backlash will lead to a world of ever smaller and
less tolerant states (Croatia, Quebec) or whether it merely represents
the last spasm of the age of nationalism.

General readers and first-year undergraduates will probably derive the
most benefit from this brief introduction to the globalization
conundrum.