Abstract
This volume is a short, easily readable overview of some major facets of contemporary globalization designed as a textbook. Spatial perspectives on economic change are, of course, invaluable, especially as the book insists that “there are no economies, only economic geographies”; in fact, the author likes this quote so much that he repeats it at least four times (pp. 21, 24, 33, 42). The book’s focus is overwhelmingly on the economically developed world, with numerous examples from Europe and North America. The lack of attention to developing countries, which arguably are just as important to current globalization, is a serious omission.
Some of the book retraces well-trodden ground, and the first six chapters offer brief overviews of neoclassical economics, structural Marxism, and poststructuralist approaches. It notes correctly that economic geographic thought is too diverse to be encompassed by a single paradigm. However, too much attention is devoted to the dying, moribund traditions of location theory such as central place theory and the gravity model, which have little that is meaningful to say about globalization today. The treatment of more recent views, such as the cultural turn, although brief, is noteworthy. While these schools of thought comprise the volume’s conceptual core, they are brought to bear only tangentially, if at all, on the empirical matter that follows. Fortunately, the writing is straightforward and unambiguous.
Essentially, after six conceptual chapters, all the empirical material is squeezed, compressed, and compacted into Chapter 7. As a result, many topics are mentioned briefly or in passing, including transnational corporations, international trade, foreign direct investment, and the explosive surge of East Asian economies. For example, transnational and multinational corporations, global commodity chains, and production networks combined receive two paragraphs or less than a page. Other topics—labor, gender, poverty—hardly merit mention at all. The conclusion points to policy implications, which is always welcome.
The book is marred by several amateurish, cartoon-like graphics that distract more than they inform. It does not contain a single map or a table. There are a number of brief case studies set off in boxes, including brief snapshots of London as a global city, Silicon Valley, Utah’s high-tech industry, offshoring in India, Ireland’s ICT sector, Bratislava, and finance on Wall Street.
As a complement to existing textbooks in economic geography, this one has some, but limited, potential. While it is good as far as it goes, the slim volume tries to do too much in too little space. It does address timely topics like the current financial crisis and services in general, which are often ignored in the globalization literature. However, because it often teeters on the superficial, I would not recommend it as a stand-alone core book for a class. The title promises a short introduction, and that it delivers, but there is such a thing as too short.