Manfred B. Steger. Globalization

First published in 2003, Globalization: A Very Short Introduction has since been translated into a range of languages. The English version was well-received, and in 2017, Oxford University Press published the book’s fourth edition. Due to the contemporary issues the monograph covers, it is hardly surprising that the 2017 edition is more than a reprint of earlier versions of the same book. The author, Manfred B. Steger, modified substantial parts of his text and added more substance to themes that have become particularly important over the past few years. These include enduring problems like the global inequality of environmental challenges and new political currents, from Trumpism to ISIL. Manfred Steger doesn’t treat these forces as wholly new phenomena, but seeks to sketch the wider contemporary and historical contexts from which they arise. Like other works in Oxford’s Very Short Introductions series, Steger’s book is supposed to offer a concise overview of a given topic—not in the sense of a textbook but rather as a primer of interest to a general audience that can also be used for teaching. “Globalization” is, by definition, a topic that is large and difficult to clearly circumscribe, particularly in fewer than 150 small pages. Another challenge, as Steger emphasizes in his introduction, is the vague connotations of “globalization,” a term that has gained prominence fairly recently and that remains subject to a wide range of definitions and viewpoints. He shows the lack of consensus regarding the scales, root causes, topographies, chronologies, and other character traits of globalization and offers insights into relevant rival interpretations.

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