Collapse of Globalism:
And the Reinvention of the World - John Ralston Saul

Globalization, like many great geopolitical ideologies before it, is now officially dead.

Despite the near-religious conviction with which it was originally conceived, a growing vagueness now surrounds its original promise that nation states were heading toward irrelevance, to be replaced by the power of global markets; that economics, not politics or arms, would determine the course of human events; that growth in international trade would foster prosperous markets that would, in turn, abolish poverty and change dictatorships into democracies.

Yet, contends Saul, little has transpired as predicted. The collapse of Globalism has left us struggling in a paradox - a chaotic vacuum. Instead of surrendering or sharing sovereignty, governments and citizens are reasserting their national interests. The United States appears determined to ignore its international critics. Europe is faced with problems of immigration, racism, terrorism and renewed internal nationalism. Many of these issues call for uniquely European solutions born out of local experiences and needs. Elsewhere, the world looks for answers to African debt, the AIDS epidemic, the return of fundamentalism and terrorism, all of which perversely refuse to disappear despite the theoretical rise in global prosperity.

In addition to the negative aspects of Globalism, Saul also objectively analyzes its successes, such as the astonishing growth in world trade and the unexpected rise of India and China, which seem slated to become twenty-first-century superpowers.

Insightful and prophetic, The Collapse of Globalism is destined to take its place as one of the seminal books of our time. Saul calls for a new "positive nationalism" designed around serving the public good.

"Thank God for John Ralston Saul. At least Canada has one leading intellectual unafraid to challenge the negative nationalism and feeble orthodoxies that seem to consume our elites." - David Mitchell, The Vancouver Sun

"Like Orwell, Koestler, Marshall McLuhan, Primo Levi and Tim Flannery, John Ralston Saul tells us unsparingly how tremendously we got things wrong ... [Saul has] the most wide-ranging mind and [is] one of the greatest organizing and focussing teachers we have." - Sydney Morning Herald

Format: Hardback
Size: 133 x 206 mm
Pages: 324
Published: 2005

What they say about NI..