Ricardo French-Davis and Stephany Griffith-Jones, eds. 1995. Coping with Capital Surges: The Return of Finance to Latin America Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Ricnncr Publishers, 1995. x+277 pp. ISBN l-55587-562-9,$49.95 (hardcover) ISBN l-55587-581-5, $29.95 (paper) Reviewed by Luis Llambi Centro de Antropologia, Instituto Vcnczolano de Invcstigacioncs Cicntifica~ (IVIC), Caraca~, Venezuela I acknowledge having mixed feelings reading this book. Nevertheless, I strongly recommend it. My concern, however, is not so much about what the book says but what it is not able, or willing, to say. Most of the book wa~ written in a time of ma~sivc capital inflows to selected Latin American countries from 1989 to 1994. The book reflects the general euphoria among government officials, multilateral agencies, and private investors in relation to the resurgence of capital inflows to the so-called emerging markets of Latin America. The 1982 debt crisis, they thought, wa~ over. Structural adjustment programs backed up by the IMF and the World Bank were sending the proper signals to prospective capital investors. The signing ofNAFTA and its possible extension to the rest of Latin America promised a new scenario of economic integration between the rich ''North" and the underdeveloped "South." The book's main objectives arc to explain the sources of these financial flows; to identify their effects on short-term macrostability and long-term economic growth for recipient countries; and to discern the policy implications in both source and recipient countries. Its main concern is how to avoid the risks of real exchange appreciation (undermining export-oriented development strategics) and short-term speculative investment~ (jeopardizing long-term sustained growth) created in the recipient countries by this capital inflow boom. But the book also reveals a concern for the danger of so-called recurrent systemic crises in this recently globalizcd financial sccnano. [Page 208] Journal of World-Systems Research Yet, a~ the preface and concluding chapters recognize, at the end of 1994 the economic conjuncture started to shift dramatically. Short-term capital inflows began to dry up, capital flight to the North restarted, and there were fears of a backla~h in the multilateral agencies-backed structural adjustment programs. What went wrong? The Zapatista uprising of January 1, 1994, the same day NAFTA wa~ signed, sent a powerful message to the world that economic integration between an impoverished South and a rich North could not be successfully accomplished without paying enough attention to the destiny of a growing population of "losers" a~ a result of the new economic model. Furthermore, on December 20, 1994, the peso devaluation - "the first large crisis of our new world of global financial markets" a~ IMF general manager Michael Camdcssus aptly put it - and the waves of instability it spurred in other Latin American financial markets (the so- called Tequila effect) threatened again to undermine confidence in short-term economic stability and long-term sustained economic growth. The book is the fourth in a series of policy-oriented research studies funded by IDRC (the International Development Research Centre of Canada). The book's structure reflects the above-stated objectives. The first part analyzes the magnitude, composition and outlook for future capital flows from three different sources: the US, Europe, and Japan. l found Roy Culpcpcr's chapter on the role of North American investors particularly insightful in explaining the connections between the recent capital inflows to Latin America and the historical development of world capital markets. By contra~t, the chapters on the links between the European (Griffith-Jones) and Japanese (Chuhan and Jun) capital markets and recent capital upsurges in Latin America arc less convincing. [Page 209] Journal of World-Systems Research The second part of the book deals with the macroeconomic impacts and policy responses of the economic authorities of three Latin American countries: Chile, Mexico, and Argentina. The authors provide valuable insiders' looks at the variegated and sometimes diverging policies which the economic authorities of these three countries have pursued in moderating the impacts of capital inflows on domestic macroeconomic stability. l found particularly revealing the chapter on Chile (by Ffrcnch-Davis, Agosin, and Uthoff), usually perceived a~ a stronghold of financial deregulation and market-led economic policies, in its analysis of the flexible and pragmatic regulatory approach followed by its economic authorities after 1987 when portfolio investments threatened to destabilize its ba~ic macroeconomic equilibria. l especially liked the la~t chapter about policy recommendations (by Devlin, Ffrcnch- Davis, and Griffith-Jones). This chapter provides a compelling rationale for the need of regulation of capital markets at various levels. The return of private capital flows to Latin America is to be welcomed, due to their potential positive contribution to the recovery of economic activity in the region. Y ct to make the mutual benefits from these flows sustainable, governments in both source and recipient countries should take appropriate mca~urcs. Among the mca~urcs discussed arc better monitoring of the flows and appropriate, a~ well a~ coordinated, macroeconomic mca~urcs. The book docs a good job of unveiling some of the problems facing recipient countries with capital inflows. However, at the book's end one is left with the idea that it docs not tell the whole story. After all, ha~ the debt crisis for the heavily indebted countries of Latin America pa~scd? What is the final balance between these short-term capital inflows and capital outflows resulting from new indebtedness? What arc the ultimate effects of capital liberalizations on variables such a~ wages, employment, poverty, and nutrition? Probably the first question with which one should start is, how truly sustainable arc the structural adjustment programs on which the whole inflow of short-term capital flows is ba~cd? [Page 210] Journal of World-Systems Research Ping-Chun Hsiung Living Rooms a~ Factories: Cla~s, Gender and the Satellite Factory System in Taiwan Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996. x+l 71 pp. ISBN l-56639-389-2, $44.95 (hardcover); ISBN l-56639-390-6, $18.95 (paper) Reviewed by Jennifer Bickham Mendez Department of Sociology, University of California-Davis, Davis, California, USA "Living rooms a~ factories," the slogan of a Taiwanese government-sponsored community development program that promotes married women's participation in the work force a~ homeworkers, captures nicely the interconnections of patriarchal and capitalist interests in controlling women's productive labor. It makes a fitting title for Ping-Chun Hsiung's investigation of the daily reality of Taiwan's "economic miracle" a~ viewed through the life experiences of married women workers in the satellite factory system. Exploring the reconciliation of the "potential conflict between the capitalist~' interests in having plenty of cheap labor and the patriarchal demand for the unconditional service of full-time housewives in the home" (p. 15), Hsiung uses ethnographic, a~ well a~ statistical data, to analyze the interplay of macro and micro socioeconomic forces in Taiwan during its transformation from an agricultural to an export-oriented manufacturing economy. Like many developing countries, Taiwan ha~ seen the establishment of large multinational corporations in export processing zones. In contra~t with many such nations, however, Taiwan's uniqueness lies in its strong reliance on small-scale, family-centered subcontracting factories outside of these zones. Indeed, Hsiung contends that these satellite factories have been at the core of the country's economic accomplishments. [Page 211] Journal ofWorld-Systems Research The study incorporates three levels of analysis: the sociopolitical environment of the satellite factory system (including an analysis of the state a~ a capitalist agent), the organizational structure of the satellite factory system a~ part of the country's export sector, and the micro-level processes that occur in the day-to-day life of workers and owners on the shop floor. In the tradition of feminist research, Hsiung treats the gendered division of labor within both the family and the factory. In this manner, her project contributes to the ongoing feminist intellectual project of demonstrating the blurred nature of the split between public and private spheres. In particular, Hsiung is interested in the changes that the shift to manufacturing ha~ brought in the everyday lives of married women, an understudied group in research on gender and global production. Hsiung finds that although the first generation of Taiwan's satellite factory workers tended to be single women, family-oriented factories have increa~ingly relied on the paid and unpaid labor of married women since the 1970s. While the satellite system ha~ offered men the opportunity to become owners of small factories, this opportunity rests on the unpaid labor of female family workers or ca~ual homeworkers. Thus, the male "heads of household" can strengthen their authority within the family by becoming the owners of the means of production, and the foundations of the patriarchal family system arc simultaneously reinforced. A~ industrialization ha~ unfolded in Taiwan, women arc not only molded into dutiful wives, mothers and daughters-in-law, but arc also transformed into productive laborers. Husbands expect their wives to work in factories a~ paid or unpaid laborers, making the satellite factory system "the latest version of the Chinese family -- a locus where capitalist logic and patriarchal practices intersect" (p. 13). In this new household economy a woman's procreative capacities arc not enough to ensure her financial security. Hsiung, therefore, calls for an amendment to Margery Wolfs notion of the "uterine family" a~ a financial support system for married women in Taiwan. [Page 212] Journal of World-Systems Research Hsiung's analysis of the labor process within satellite factories outlines the ways in which factory owners utilize work schedules, wage systems and boarding arrangement~ a~ forms oflabor control. Oppressive labor practices arc combined with close surveillance on the shop floor, a~ factory owners or their family members often work on the shop floor, closely monitoring the labor process and setting the pace of production. In addition, factory owners employ preexisting family and kinship structures a~ well a~ clements of ethnic pride to control workers. Often labor disputes arc handled a~ familial matters, thus legitimizing the decisions of the factory owner. This practice, however, is also employed by the workers in labor disputes. Factory owners arc called upon a~ family members who arc responsible for the well-being of other members of the family. Thus, satellite workers use the logic of paternalism against factory owners. Hsiung spent three months working in and visiting satellite factories that produced wooden jewelry boxes. Her work contributes to Burawoy-rclatcd literature on the labor process a~ well a~ research regarding the gendered dynamics of global capitalism and production politics. Although Hsiung briefly introduces the ca~c of women workers of the Taiwanese factory system a~ part of a global trend of transnational production, she frames the study almost completely in terms of prior research conducted on Taiwan. In this manner, Hsiung is more concerned with filling the void in research on women factory workers in Taiwan, demonstrating the gender-blindness and bia~cs of prior research treating Taiwan's small factories and updating ethnographic depictions of Taiwanese families than with drawing theoretical connections between the Taiwanese ca~c and factory systems in other area~ of the world. Thus, this work is valuable a~ a first- timc analysis of the gendered a~pccts of the organization of Taiwan's satellite factory system and the labor process within it a~ well a~ an investigation of the experience of married women within this system. It lacks, however, an in-depth theoretical treatment of the how this ca~c fits into the larger picture of the global restructuring of capitalism. [Page 213] Journal of World-Systems Research For example, work on gender and industrialization in Latin America and other area~ of the world reveal~ certain commonalties and distinctions with the ca~c presented by Hsiung, and the absence of comparison is disappointing. Hsiung docs not explore the similarities between the organization of production of the satellite system in Taiwan and ca~cs like the mini-maquila system in rural Colombia (Cynthia Truelove, "Disguised Industrial Proletarians in Rural Latin America," in Kathryn Ward, ed., WOMEN WORKERS AND GLOBAL RESTRUCTURING, 1990). Another fruitful point of comparison would have been trends in work-force composition in other area~ of the world where export-oriented production ha~ existed for approximately the same amount of time, such a~ northern Mexico (cf. Susan Tiano, PATRIARCHY ON THE LINE, 1994). Sadly, Hsiung docs little to remedy the lack of rigorous comparative analyses on gender and industrial work. The most compelling parts of this book arc those devoted to the ethnographic depictions of married women's experiences of transformation into productive laborers and their day- to-day lives a~ workers on the shop floor. Unfortunately, Hsiung docs not turn to this part of her analysis until midway in her book. I found her consideration of worker resistance to be one of the most interesting sections of the book. Adding to the accumulated body of knowledge regarding nonunion resistance on the part of female factory workers, she picks apart the social relationships which constitute the labor process in satellite factories. Hsiung penetrates the "personal" guise of worker-owner relationships to reveal calculated tactics of worker control and resistance. For example, one common tactic directed at the factory owner is "wrangling": rapid, verbal battles in which opponents attempt to shoot the other down by shaming them or by demonstrating superior verbal prowess. Victorious wrangling sessions build solidarity among workers and may even have material results such a~ incrca~cd wages. In this manner, Hsiung's analysis of workers' resistance to the labor process represents yet another challenge to the notion of female factory workers a~ docile, pa~sivc targets of capitalist and patriarchal control. [Page 214] Journal of World-Systems Research Hsiung's depiction of worker complicity and resistance would be much improved, however, if she had employed a more in-depth cultural analysis of these practices and their meanings. Such an analysis would have imparted to the reader the cultural context in which the meanings of these practices arc deployed, providing a richer understanding of the dialectic of worker resistance/control within the satellite factory setting. Hsiung glosses over women workers' use of wrangling a~ a collective bargaining technique and this is also disappointing. The reader is left wondering about the theoretical implications of this more-collective mode of negotiation. In addition to exploring the daily life of the shop floor, Hsiung moves her analysis to the state level, demonstrating how state policies and patriarchal norms arc mutually supportive. Government policy ha~ defined women's productive and rcprodu ctivc responsibilities through community development programs, such a~ the "Mothers' workshops" and the "Living Rooms a~ Factories programs." These programs arc means by which the state ha~ reconciled the conflict between female labor force participation and women's dependent role within the family by "instructing them to remain morally obligated to contribute to Taiwan's economic development through fulfillment of their traditional duties in the family ... "(p. 15). In this manner, the government reinforces women's subordinate status in the family, while at the same time incorporating this group into the labor force a~ subsidiary workers. By analyzing the implications of state policies and economic processes at the level of the family and the day-to-day cxpcricnccof individual workers, Hsiung challenges the research of economists and political scientists who have analyzed Taiwan's economic shift from agriculture to manufacturing from a purely macro-level perspective. At the same time, she docs not ignore this level of inquiry and uses statistical data to address the macro-level, gender-specific a~pccts of the country's "economic miracle." Although Hsiung's multi-tiered analysis is impressive in scope and the introduction of her book promises much, the work's short length leaves the reader wanting. With so much to accomplish at so many levels, Hsiung is not able to go into sufficient detail regarding any one a~pcct of her analysis. Thus, she seems unable to fulfill some of the theoretical promises she makes in her bold introduction. [Page 215] Journal of World-Systems Research For instance, in her analysis of the varied experiences of women factory workers Hsiung promises to "disentangle the tension between women's cla~s and gender identities" (p. 14 ). Although Hsiung depicts how work in the factories benefits women differently according to their relationship to the factory owner, she pays scant attention to how the women thc1rnelvcs perceive their identities and any tensions among them. In addition, the book's introduction states an intention to derive sociological concepts from Hsiung's ethnographic data regarding worker resistance. The reader is hard-pressed to discern what these concepts arc. Herc, again, a more in-depth comparative analysis would have been useful. Connecting the satellite factory workers' practices of resistance with personalized, informal tactics in other factory systems and even other work situations would have provided a richer theoretical understanding of how worker resistance in Taiwan fits into a larger, cross-cultural, and transnational scheme. Although those with interest in the global restructuring of capitalism will find Hsiung's work useful, its lack of comparative analysis means it will mainly be of greatest interest to those who study this area of the world. Despite the contributions this work makes to the existing literature regarding gender and the state, the interconnections of patriarchy and the global restructuring of capitalism, and the interplay of gender and cla~s, the reader is left hungry for richer ethnographic detail. At the theoretical level the reader may also be disappointed by the work's failure to fulfill the bold promises of theoretical advancement. [Page 216] Journal of World-Systems Research Valentine Udoh James, ed., Sustainable Development in Third World Countries: Applied and Theoretical Perspectives Westport, CT: Pracgcr, 1996. xvii+245 pp. ISBN 0-275-95307-6, $69.50 (hardcover) Reviewed by Frederick H. Buttel Department of Rural Sociology and Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA At a time when ncolibcral notions of privatization, flexibility, structural adjustment, fiscal discipline and "getting prices right" reign supreme in official development circles, environmental responsibility has become essentially the only effective lever for restraining the powerful impulse to incorporate more completely the peoples and lands of the South in the service of capital. There has been a spate of scholarly studic s in and on "sustainability" over the past decade or so. But progress in formulating strategics that yield both meaningful development and resource conservation has been disappointing. At the practical level, sustainable development remains largely confined to the rural renewable resource sectors -- at the same time that dcpcasantization and urbanization of the South continue to proceed rapidly. At the political level, the successes registered in popular mobilization against socially and environmentally des tructivc projects and practices remain more than counterbalanced by the fact that sustainability sloganeering has not made a fundamental difference in how the most powerful development assistance and finance institutions approach policymaking and project design. Thus, further scholarship on the topic of sustainability and sustainable development remains very welcome. [Page 217] Journal of World-Systems Research James' edited volume, Sustainable Development in Third World Countries, focuses almost entirely on the practical aspect of sustainable development. The few times that the book's authors delve into social theory arc the few occasions when radical criticisms of the precision of the terminology of sustainable development (e.g., M. Rcdclift, Sustainable Development, 1987) arc acknowledged or when topics such as Western colonialism and nco-colonialism arc debated briefly. This is not necessarily a shortcoming. A case could be made, nine years after the publication of the Brundtland Report (World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, 1987), that the time has long since passed that conceptual exegeses of the notion arc very useful or interesting. Breakthroughs in practical scholarship arc very welcome at this point in time. World-systems researchers will thus need to recognize that this is not a piece of scholarship that has a strong connection to the world-systems perspective as commonly understood. Not only arc the works ofW allerstcin, Arrighi, Chase-Dunn, Frank, and others overlooked by the editor and authors, there is scarcely any reference to any of the major pieces of scholarship in development studies theory. Even the editor's own chapter on the need for national self-sufficiency for African countries proceeds without citing any of the important works on this topic from world-systems and related quarters (e.g., by Samir Amin, Gavin Kitching). Likewise, none of the authors ha~ grappled with Michael Watts's seminal scholarship on the economic geography of environmental degradation in sub-Saharan Africa. The problems of Sustainable Development in the Third World Countries begin with the book's title. Essentially all of the chapters arc about sub-Saharan Africa, so that the reference to the "Third World" is somewhat misleading. Likewise, the subtitle - Applied and Theoretical Perspectives -- misleads in the sense that virtually all of the chapters in the book arc applied in orientation. The "theoretical" material in this book is largely confined to theorizing about effective development practices and planning, rather than about development studies in the larger sense. Felix Edoho's chapter on "Toward Sustainable Development in the Twenty-First Century: Rccnginccring Development in Sub-Saharan Africa" docs make an attempt to discuss sustainable development within a larger perspective on African underdevelopment, but this chapter unfortunately gets bogged down in criticizing the notion of "Western culpability" for the crises plaguing sub-Saharan Africa. [Page 218] Journal of World-Systems Research While it is my view that this anthology docs not move the field of sustainable development forward to a significant degree, there arc some quite useful chapters in this volume. Lamb's chapter on "African Economic History and Its Planning Potcn tial: An Investigation of Sources" and Edoho's chapter arc worthwhile reading. D. M. Warren's two chapters on indigenous knowledge -- a chapter in Part I focused on agricultural development, and a second chapter in Part II on biodiversity conservation -- arc useful. It would have been appropriate to stitch Warren's two chapters into one, though very likely this wa~ not done because of the fact that the first half of the book is divided into Part I on "Sustainable Development and Agriculture" and Part II on "Conservation, Preservation, and Health Issues." (The three brief chapters of Part II - a total of slightly over 40 pp. - constitute such a thin slice of this subject mattcrthat it would have been less clmrny to combine the two Warren chapters and fold the othcrtwo into an expanded Part L) Constance McCorklc's chapter, "The Roles of Animals in Cultural, Social, and Agro- cconomic Systcms,"is a well-argued antidote to Western environmental doctrine about the wa~tc and destructiveness of animal agriculture in the South. That the best chapters of this anthology arc those ba~cd on the rural renewable resource sectors -- essentially only agriculture -- suggests that this will not be a volume that breaks new ground in the scholarly tradition of sustainable dcvc lopmcnt. Only a few world- systcms researchers with strong interests in sub-Saharan Africa will be drawn to Sustainable Development in Third World Countries. [Page 219] Journal of World-Systems Research Paul E. Lovejoy and Nichola~ Rogers, eds. Unfrcc Labour in the Development of the Atlantic World Portland, Oregon: Frank Ca~s, 1994, 266 pp. ISBN 0-7146-4579-6, $35.00 (hardcover) ISBN 0-7146-4152-9, $20.00 (paperback) Reviewed by William Canak Department of Sociology, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA Unfrcc Labour in the Development of the Atlantic World(ULITDOTAW) deserves an acronym twice over. First, it wa~ birthed by a conference held at York University in April 1993. Second, a~ the awkward and vague title suggests the wit and wisdom of committee work, it merits a bureaucratic moniker. And a~ with many committee products, this one patches together the good, the bad, and the ugly. Lack of coherent focus is seldom a virtue. Many of the chapters, however, arc examples of good writing and sound scholarship. These save the day. ULITDOT AW draws us to consider the ways in which capitalism is marked by patterned legal and cultural definitions that shape labor contracts, define social groups available for exploitation, and chart the possibilities for social mobilization and resistance. As I read the chapters I recognized the American South, Finnish miners in the Northern Range, and a myriad of other labor systems and forms of organized social resistance common to capitalist relations ba~cd on extensive manual labor and a shortage of capital. Only now, these familiar faces were transformed into Amerindians, Africans, Brazilian slaves, and British workers. [Page 220] Journal of World-Systems Research The editors propose central themes found in Philip D. Curtin's comparative historical approach to European expansion, destruction of Amerindian societies, and creation of an Atlantic economy ba~cd on unfrcc labor of various types. Further, they propose a theoretical perspective that addresses the possible co -existence of different modes of production and labor relations within different social formations. None of this seems to matter much when one reads the chapters. What actually draws the authors together is a concern with labor relations in the age of European colonial expansion. It's a loose theme and produced a set of papers that range widely across Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. There is little comparative method here, but the informed reader will find wonderful material for understanding the common patterns of domination and subordination, repression and resistance that characterize colonial capitalism. There is some revisionist history here, particularly with regard to the dcva~tating population declines of Central America (Bolland) and the response of Amerindians to market relations (Melville and Radding). Michael Taussig's The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in Latin America will need a thorough rereading after one finishes ULITDOTA W. A~ is common among our historian colleagues, Wallcrstcin and dependency research arc slammed by the editors for "over-simplifying." But there is no slam dunk. The chapter authors generally ignore Wallcrstcin's work and dependency thcor ics. The editors' call for an integration of Annalist and world-systems perspectives may strike some readers as naive and others as bold. However, this call seems to have been made after the conference; none of the chapter authors address the issue. Rather, they do solid narrative history focusing on a host of varied topics linked to systems of labor control. Out of these narratives l gained new understanding of how law and regulatory structures have defined the structure and practice of coercion in capitalist labor relations. ln addition, these histories compel one to consider the similarities of slaves, indentured servants, and bondsmen. These groups' identity is defined in relation to property-owners and legal structures, not derived from innate constituent characteristics. This common relational identity creates a socio-legal basis for alliances between Irish, African, and Indian laborers in specific contexts. Finally, these chapters richly describe the resources and identity brought to the "unfrcc labor" relationship by peoples who were once free and know the difference through their memories, social institutions, and habits of the heart, as Robert Bellah and his associates would describe them. [Page 221] Journal of World-Systems Research ULlTDOT AW is organized into three parts that express the editors' efforts to cobble a logic uniting these papers. Part l, "Frontiers," consists of four chapters which analyze labor, property and market relations in colonial Mcsoamcrica and the Caribbean. Part 11, "Old Worlds, New Worlds," contains four chapters, three of which arc linked by a common concern with legislation and criminal codes. Part 111, "Aftermath of Abolition," has four chapters which consider post-slavery labor relations in Brazil, in African Yoruba society, in Victorian Britain, and in a broad international comparison. The best chapters arc rich with narrative detail identifying the objective social relations, legal institutions, and social policies within which slavery and other labor control system~ were meaningful. The worst chapters vaguely sketch the behaviors of capitalists, conquerors, British, Spanish, landowners, slaveholders, and slaves devoid of context, substance, and meaning. These latter chapters assert a mechanistic logic of the sort usually found in bad modernization, dependency, and world-systems theory. ln contrast to the old adage about good families being the same while miserable ones arc unhappy in their own distinct ways, here we find that good comparative historical research always strikes one as fresh. Slapdash broadsides, whatever their intellectual home, seem to be cut from the same cloth. Once history is devoid ofrcal historical actors, all things may be asserted. One wishes the editors had felt themselves licensed to exercise the scalpel a bit more liberally. Bolland ("Colonization and Slavery in Central America") precisely documents aspects of the American holocaust's impact on slave exports from Central America to Peru, the Caribbean, and Panama and subsequent demand for African slaves. Bolland follows the alternate paths of Spanish and British Central American colonial economics. Slavcholding and resistance patterns were linked to particular extractive enterprises on one hand, and opportunities afforded by work relations and the possibilities for escape on the other. Bolland demonstrates that David E. Stannard's American Holocaust (I 992) ha~ far from exhausted this rich vein of revisionist history. [Page 222] Journal of World-Systems Research Elinor G.K. Melville presents a very brief but tightly argued revisionist history of sixteenth century labor relations. She revises our understanding of the hacienda-wage labor system by demonstrating that wage labor appeared in the pre -hacienda era on other agricultural unit~. She argues that demographic decline and range deterioration in the late sixteenth century undermined small holdings and common range grazing systems. Drawing on the work of Gibson, Taylor, Zeitlin, Riley, and others, she a~scrts that " ... Indians were actively engaged in the formation ofland-labour relations in rural area~. rather than simply responding to Spanish initiatives" (p. 32). We arc left with a new view of Indians' active manipulation of the evolving colonial political economy, their capacity in many circumstances to hold on to their land and dominate regional production at the expense of Spanish landowners. Hilary McD. Beckles' "The Colours of Property: Brown, White and Black Chattel~ and their Responses on the Caribbean Frontier" is, a~ the title suggcs ts, a horse of a different color. This is the epitome of the Aristotelian project, "We know it ifwc can define it." Beckles' aim is to evaluate the pattern of slave revolts by responding to Orlando Patterson's direction that we study the everyday lives of bonded labor to learn what they thought of their reality. Herc English and French, labor market forces, cultural and ideological factors, and ma~tcrs and servants arc juggled in a whirlwind of supposedly comparative profiles. The result is a set of stages and types, the stages chart the development of plantation agriculture (construction, mature functioning, crisis) and the types describe slave resistance struggles ( day to day, unsuccessful plots, and successful rebellions). This exercise leads us to the vague and useless conclusions common to such enterprises, "They rebelled when they could, and in ways peculiar to their specific social consciousness and circumstances" (p. 49). [Page 223] Journal of World-Systems Research A very different analysis explaining resistance patterns in northwest Mexico, one rooted in a close analysis of the pca~ant attitudes toward work and market exchange, marketing systems developing in the Sonoran area, and native pca~ants' rationality a~ a defense of subsistence. Herc we find the social ecology of resistance inextricably linked in the subsistence patterns characterizing Amerindian communities in a historically specific time and place. Again we find revealed the ambiguity of control, submission, and freedom within colonial society. W c find concrete evidence that a~ community traditions kept Amerindians close to the land, shifts from communal values to commodity relations defined a major transformation over a long period of colonial rule. In Part II, "Old Worlds, New Worlds," Lovejoy and Rogers group three chapters on laws and regulations governing labor relations with a fourth, "Background to Rebellion: The Origins of Muslim Slaves in Bahia," where Lovejoy himself argues there arc strong parallels between slave revolts in Bahia and the jihad (religious war) occurring in Sudan during these same years, linked by the fact that many prisoners of war were sold into slavery. The first of the three chapters on legal studies summarizes a larger project constructing a quantitative analysis of laws governing employment relations in "common law" contexts, meaning the British empire. Craven and Hay conclude that master/servant laws were not rooted in English common law, but developed penalties and restrictions in similar colonial contexts through various diffusion professes. Roger's chapter reviews vagrancy legislation in England and the practice of impressment. He explores the complex linkages of government manpower needs and employers' concerns with sustaining a moral order legitimating traditional master/employee relations. Elbournc's chapter reviews the changing legal status of free "Hottentot" labor during colonization and the subsequent debate in Britain and the Cape Colony over the legal obligations of Khoi labor. [Page 224] Journal of World-Systems Research Part III, "Aftermath of Abolition," contains four chapters. The first, by Nancy Pricilla Naro, examines nineteenth century Brazilian slavery after the 1850s decline of Atlantic slave trading. Domestic slave markets developed in response to the growing coffee economy, but faced the problem of a declining slave population and a growth of multigcncrational slave family units. Naro charts the complex interactions of traditional social relations, the evolving and highly unstable plantation system, and, finally, the response of slave owners, slaves, and free laborers to the historical contingencies of Brazil's social hierarchy as slavery was abolished. Martin Klein presents comparative data to support the claim that abolition movements developed while slavery was still profitable and thus capitalists elaborated various alternatives to recruit and control unskilled labor that was needed for plantation systems. Slave owners never voluntarily rejected the system and abolition was usually forced on colonial societies by "center" interest groups, but usually against the resistance of colonial administrators. Tonyin Faiola analyzes the role of slaves and "pawns" in nineteenth century Yoruba estates. Most slaves derived from warfare, raids, kidnapping, or other types of violence. Pawns were free-born individuals whose contracts were linked to loans and who were required to provide labor themselves ( or that of a child) in lieu of interest. Child-pawns were usually girls and creditors had rights to their entire labor. Powerful households commanded large numbers of slaves and pawns, thus demonstrating that servile institutions were well developed in the African domestic economy. Finally, James Walvin offers a very brief essay suggesting that within Victorian Britain there developed a popular self-image that the British were a freedom-loving people with an obligation to export their freedoms much as they had exported Chistianity along with their colonial conquests. [Page 225] Journal of World-Systems Research 9 James H. Mittelman, ed. Globalization: Critical Reflections Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Ricnncr Publishers, 1996. 273 pp. ISBN 1-55587-565-3, $49.95 (hardcover) Reviewed by Philip McMichacl Department of Rural Sociology Cornell University Ithaca, New York, USA A~ the 20th century draws to a close everyone seems to be obsessed with globalization. The questions -- what it is, and when and how it arrives -- apply a~ equally to the 21st century a~ they do to globalization, a~ if the two go together quite naturally in some millennial dynamic. There is a sense of inevitability on the one hand, and on the other, considerable trepidation. Globalization: Critical Reflections addresses these sensibilities directly. This collection of chapters offers perspectives on globalization from quite diverse standpoints. The editor, James Mittelman, organizes the collection thematically, presenting globalization a~ the multi-faceted and the quite contradictory process that it is. Underlying the theme of the contradictions of globalization is Karl Polanyi's double movement, of market forces and the protective response. The book is divided between essays on ncolibcral pressures to relax and eliminate market regulations, and essays on social movements resisting the reduction of social life to the commodity form, offering alternative political and cultural paradigms ba~cd on justice and an ethic of cosmopolitanism. But all chapters acknowledge, explicitly or implicitly, the complexity of globalization's simultaneously integrating and fragmenting forces. [Page 226] Journal of World-Systems Research Mittelman opens with the questionable claim that globalization is a market-induced rather than a policy-led process. This claim derives from his legitimate proposition that a new global division oflabor embodies a series ofrelationships whereby the sites, practices, and objectives of politics arc transformed through the globalization process. The state facilitates globalization through material necessity, but such loss of state power releases historical forces in the form of sub-national identity politics on the one hand, and democratizing forces on the other, including various resistance movements such a~ feminism, environmentalism and human right~ organizations. A~ he argues, globalization is "about opportunities arising from reorganizing governance, the economy, and culture throughout the world ... opening up possibilities for more vigorous political participation at non-state levels" (p. 237). In a companion opening chapter Robert Cox, using the powerful metaphor of the Wizard of Oz, wonders aloud if there is any coherent regulatory power in the global economy, noting also that globalization undercuts conventional national political authority. Given this, and social polarization on a global scale, he suggests the conditions may be emerging for alternative forms of civil society and civilizational unity on a world scale. The economic dimensions of globalization arc featured in chapters by Sa~k:ia Sa~scn and Gary Gcrcffi. Sa~scn juxtaposes the global economy of "flows" ( of capital and services), advanced by information technologies, with the new geography of centrality of regulatory nodes, stemming from the centralization of command and the provision of services in global cities. The significance of her juxtaposition is that states remain important vehicles of the global economy, in the sense that, being spatial and legal organizations, states accommodate and contribute to the elaboration of new transnational regimes regulating these flows (rather than withering away). Gcrcffi reviews the shifting ground of development strategics, under conditions oftransnationalization of production. Referring to various ca~c studies, his focus is on the global scale of the ladder of industrial development, represented spatially by commodity chains. Development, here, involves climbing the ladder by technological upgrading and adapting the institutional practices of successful upwardly mobile states, such a~ the Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs). [Page 227] Journal of World-Systems Research A bridging chapter on the state by Leo Panitch is in a category of its own. Herc is a sophisticated argument about how globalization involves the restructuring of states, rather than bypa~sing them, a~ states internalize ncolibcral principles and author their own internationalization. This observation is grounded in a ca~c study ofNAFTA, and its institutionalization of a global property regime through investment and intellectual property laws that exceed property laws in its member states. The logic of this argument is that globalization accentuates a long-standing accommodation of states to capital, and that neither entity in and of itself is an adequate ba~is for an alternative democratic politics. The second part of this collection comprises a rich set ofca~c studies. There is Glenn Adler's analysis of the rise of the new social unionism in the context of South African industrialization under the aegis of transnational corporate investment, followed by Fantu Chcru's recounting of the material and political betrayals of African development projects, leading to a multi-faceted (and not necessarily coherent) social movement with a healthy suspicion of formal politics and development rhetoric. And, beyond South Africa, the experience of globalization is largely one of marginalization. June Na~h and Christine Kovic offer a detailed examination of the limits of Mexican President Salina~·s attempt to restructure political and economic networks to favor cntrcprcncurialism in the context of NAFTA, limits that were exposed dramatically by the Zapatista-led rebellion of 1994. Finally Mustapha Kamal Pa~ha and Ahmed Samatar peel back the layers surrounding Islamic movements to reveal a complex and fragile combination of reaction to, and qualification of, modernity, rooted in a social ba~c incrca~ingly marginalized by the forces of globalization. While there is by no means a common understanding of what globalization entails, with each essay situating its subject matter's relationship to globalization in quite different ways, arguably this is the point. Something is happening, but we don't know quite what it is, do wc 9 Which is why there is so much up for grabs, and why centers may not yet hold, and why millennial themes and identity politics arc in the forefront. [Page 228] Journal of World-Systems Research The concluding section of the book by Stephen Gill and Mittelman offers perspective on the limits of globalization. Gill, who is the progenitor of the idea of the "new constitutionalism," whereby (unrepresentative) rules institutionalizing global market relations overlay member states, secs paradoxes in contemporary globalization. First, the existence of alternative civilizations make a ncolibcral world order a logical impossibility. Second, the democratizing trends associated with global resistances arc profoundly limited by the rollback of institutionalized social rights by globalization. Finally, the social inequality produced by contemporary globalization not only unmasks dcvcl opmcnt rhetoric, but represents a crisis of social reproduction of such enormity that it can only generate alternatives. There is an inevitability in this scenario, including a certainty that new political avenues will gain ground. Mittclman's concluding chapter synthesizes the collection and explores various responses to globalization via the question: how docs globalization work 9 Perhaps the most prescient line in the book is his final phrase: "what if globalization doesn't really work9" This is a fine collection of essays overall. The range and variety of treatments of the complex ( or inchoate) subject of globalization makes this a quite representative collection. Mittclman's attempts to weave thematic unity through a set of questions work by default because globalization is such a slippery concept. As Panitch and Gill observe, globalization is not unique to the late-twentieth century, and this collection would benefit from a clearer statement of its specificity at this time. In my opinion, all the clements arc present in the collection for such a statement, in the discussions of the political project of globalization and its countcrcurrcnts. These suggest that this movement involves a profound restructuring of political power, inscribed as it is with an economic logic that presents a selective (and divisive) outcome as a universal benefit. Under these conditions, arguing about corporate/economic power versus the state is a fruitless line of inquiry, since states themselves arc integral to relations of production and circulation. As a result, the restructuring of capital is simultaneously the restructuring of states and political power, and vice versa. In this restructuring lies the generation of alternative forms of politics that arc featured in theory and in case study throughout this collection. Herein lies the strength of this book. It presents globalization as a moving target, and, as such, a subject that is difficult to conceptualize -- especially when it crystallizes alternative cpistcmologics and cultures to the rationalizing thrust of those who would manage the global market. In these senses, this is a rich and worthy treatment of a phenomenon that is often taken for granted as an inevitable process of economic integration on a world scale. [Page 229] Journal of World-Systems Research Stephen K. Sanderson, ed. Civilizations and World Systems: Studying World-Historical Change Walnut Creek, California: AltaMira Press, 1995. 324 pp. ISBN 0-7619-9104-2 $46.00 (hardcover): ISBN 0-7619-9105-0 $24.95 (paper) Reviewed by W. Warren Wagar Department of History Binghamton University Binghamton, New York, USA At the tender age of 22, I gave my first public lecture, a paper for my graduate history club on the cyclical theory of history delineated in the first ten volumes of Arnold J. Toynbee's A Study of History. (In that distant era, there were still only ten.) Now I find myself reviewing Stephen K. Sanderson's symposium Civilizations and World Systems, the same Stephen K. Sanderson who reports in his Preface that "at the tender age of 20 and while still an undergraduate student...! gave a long oral presentation on the work of Arnold J. Toynbee" (p. 9). My encounter with Toynbee helped inspire my second book, The City of Man: Prophecies of a World Civilization in Twentieth Century Thought (1963). Sanderson's encounter with Toynbee surely helped inspire his also recently published Social Transformations: A General Theory of Historical Development (1995). Cyclical theory, it seems, may apply to persons a~ well a~ to civilizations. [Page 230] Journal of World-Systems Research Civilizations and World Systems: Studying World-Historical Change is, like Social Transformations itself, a formidable achievement, bringing together 14 contemporary exponents of comparative civilizations and world-systems theory. The volume originated a~ a special issue of Comparative Civilizations Review, published in 1994, but only three articles from that special issue survive into the present work. Four other previously published articles and six newly written pieces round out the symposium, together with four illuminating introductory essays by Sanderson, two of these in collaboration with Thoma~ D. Hall. Sanderson's strategy ha~ been to present the two major current approaches to the study of world-historical change, the "civilizationist" school and the "world-systems" school, and then to explore how these disparate approaches may ( or may not) complement one another, in the unconcealed hope that they will eventually fuse into a super-theory of world history. Cyclical, evolutionary, and systemic analysis all enter into the big picture he seeks to draw. The articles in the first part of the symposium make the ca~e for the civilizationists. Matthew Melko discusses "The Nature of Civilizations," comparing and contra~ting the definitions and lists of civilizations furnished by Spengler, Toynbee, Kroeber, Bagby, Coulborn, and Quigley. Mclko concludes by likening civilizations to symphonies: both have themes that pass through stages of development, from beginning to end. David Wilkinson follows with an essay on his thesis that a "Central Civilization" was created about 1500 B.C. by the fusion of the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations. Over the centuries this Central Civilization engulfed all the others, and its "current manifestation" is the single global civilization in which everyone on earth, willy-nilly, now dwells. The final piece in the first part, by the late William Eckhardt, offers what he terms a dialectical evolutionary theory of the relationship between civilizations, empires, and wars. W calth, power, and conquest, he argues, arc directly correlated. Civilizations with surplus wealth produce empires that win wars, but a point is always reached when costs exceed gains, leading to the loss of wars, the collapse of empires, and the unraveling of civilizations. Wars serve as "both midwives and undertakers in the rise and fall of civilizations" (p. 91 ). [Page 231] Journal of World-Systems Research In the second part of Sanderson's symposium, world-systems theorists take their turn, after a lengthy introduction by Sanderson and Hall devoted chiefly to Immanuel Wallcrstcin's founding theory. Christopher Chase-Dunn and Hall lead off with an essay comparing world-systems over the past 10,000 years by such measures as siz c of population, spatio-temporal boundaries, cycles of rise and fall, and settlement systems. Barry K. Gills takes a similarly long view in the next chapter, "Capital and Power in the Processes of World History," an exposition of the work that he and Andre Gunder Frank have done to demonstrate the antiquity of cumulative capitalist development and its integral relationship to the wielding of political power. Gills rejects the "conventional dichotomies" ofprcmodcrn versus modern, whether applied to economics or to politics. A vast capitalist Eurasian world-system has existed in various forms for 5,000 years. Frank adds an essay of his own sharply critical of the alleged Eurocentric bias ofBraudel and W allerstcin. Two other chapters, by Albert Bergesen and Andrew Bosworth, furnish additional support for the Frank-Gills approach to world-systems theory. Bergesen even recommends that we "let go" of the old models altogether, scrapping the notion of a plurality of systems and civilizations, and building a new model of world-historical development that will encompass all of world history from earliest times. The last two parts of Civilizations and World Systems feature five essays that address the prospects for a synthesis of civilizationist and world-systems approaches. Now that both sides have had their say, can they find common ground? Is there hope for a super-theory of world-historical change? [Page 232] Journal of World-Systems Research Wallcrstcin is skeptical. In "Hold the Tiller Firm: On Method and the Unit of Analysis," he chides both camps for succumbing to methodological temptations that, in his opinion, place the whole enterprise of world-historical analysis in jeopardy. Many world-systems theorists, he contends, arc either too cager to generalize and posit laws (the nomothctic temptation) or too cager to deny the possibility of discovering meaningful generalizations (the idiographic temptation). Chase-Dunn's comparative approach illustrates the former, Frank's single world-system approach illustrates the latter. Holding the tiller firm, for Wallcrstcin, means the negotiation ofa pragmatic balance between these two extremes. As for the civilizationists, their original sin is to succumb to the temptation to rcify, to assume that civilizations arc real-life organisms, rather than concepts useful for the purposes of sociohistorical analysis. The remaining four essays strike a more optimistic note. Willdnson returns for an encore triumphantly entitled, "Civilizations arc World Systems!" His formula for consensus is quite simple. Civilizationists must agree that the many local civilizations of the past have evolved into the single global civilization of our own time. World-systcmatists must agree that the global world system of our own time emerged from a plurality of past world systems. And both must agree that past civilizations and urbanized world systems were, and today's global civilization and world system arc, "identical" (p. 248). The body ofWilldnson's article consists of brief but incisive dialogues with Toynbee, Quigley, Spengler ("brilliantly, perversely, powerfully wrong," p. 253), Mcllrn, Hord, Soroldn, Huntington, Chase-Dunn, Hall, and Gills and Frank, in which Willdnson outlines his areas of agreement and/or disagreement with each. Then Sanderson himself weighs in with a chapter critical of the idealist bias of civilizationists and suggesting that the concept of "expanding world commercialization" may provide a bridge between the two perspectives. Next, Victor Roudomctofand Roland Robertson contribute a provocative essay arguing for a transcendence of the struggle between idealism and materialism in world-historical analysis. Refuse to privilege either ontology, they recognize that civilizations arc networks of political, economic, and cultural-ideological forces. [Page 233] Journal of World-Systems Research The concluding chapter, by the only historian in the volume, William H. McNcill, consists ofan unsparing autocritiquc of his best-known work, The Rise of the West. Mc Neill concedes that his book, published in the halcyon days of the early 1960s, should be seen today "as an expression of the postwar imperial mood in the United States" (p. 303). Residual Euroccntrism blinded Mc Neill, he confesses, to the primacy of China in the period from 1000 to 1500 A.D. More importantly, his civilizationist bias led him to represent the span of world history only as a series of cultural efflorescences, first here, then there, without regard for the ecumenical processes leading to the emergence of the modern world system. Implicit in McNcill's repentance is the possibility of a much improved method ofrcading world history that combines civilizationist and world- systcms analysis. What impresses me most about this symposium, and has always impressed me most about the principal figures in both civilizationist and world-systems research, is the willingness of all concerned to listen, contend with, and learn from one another. This is only as it should be, but one of the many reasons why another recent scholarly endeavor with which I fellow-travel, the study of alternative world futures, ha~ fallen so short of its early promise is that futurists, by and large, do not listen, do not contend with, and do not learn from one another. (Of course shutting one's cars is a vice by no means unique to futurists!) In any cvcnt,just like Sorokin and Toynbee before them, a~ evidenced in Sorokin's Social Philosophies of an Age of Crisis (1950) and Toynbee's response to his critics in the la~t volume of A Study of History (1961), contemporary civilizationists and world-systems theorists do engage in meaningful dialogue. Nowhere is that dialogue more forcefully evident than in Sanderson's symposium, a deliberate effort to bang heads together and strive for consensus. What impresses me almost a~ much a~ this symposium's dialogue, however, is the persistence of an antediluvian modernist social-scientific hubris that almost totally ignores the subjectivity of all scholarly enterprises. Each of Sanderson's contenders is willing to listen, but they rarely descend to irony or relativism. Each wise man appears convinced that he (they arc all "he's") carries his own sack of Truth thickly lined with confirming data. If only the various sacks can be combined into a larger one, a super-sack, then perhaps the world-historical- theoretical millennium will have arrived. We will boa~t the very best and finest model of world history, and then turn our attention to other challenges. Perhaps it is my own idiographic bia~ a~ a historian, but I find such expectations more entertaining than inspiring,just a~ I used to chuckle over the efforts of Sorokin and Krocbcr to strain the "facts" of various encyclopedia~ through the elaborate sieves of their theoretical kitchenware. Is it not possible (and desirable) to take ourselves a little less seriously? [Page 234] Journal of World-Systems Research I have one final, and more serious, thought: Sanderson is convinced, a~ he tell~ us elsewhere (Sanderson, Social Transformations: A General Theory of Historical Development, Blackwell, 1995, p. 380), that the "capitalist-sensate" culture of our time is doomed to self-destruct in a generation or two or three. "A major economic, demographic, and ecological crisis, or possibly even a nuclear holocaust, will not be a voided. \u2026It is our fate. It is our destiny." I agree, although I make no scientific claim~ for the veracity of this forcca~t. But if modern civilization docs live under sentence of death, then applying whatever finite and fallible wisdom we can gather about the trends, cycles, and intersections of world history to the most rigorous possible study of the future should be our greatest ta~k - either to understand why we arc doomed, or somehow to dodge that doom, or to ensure that a remnant of humankind rises from the a~hcs. Not only should civilizationists and the various breeds of world-systems theorists try to bridge the gaps that separate them: they owe their progeny an effort still more strenuous to build bridges to the future. Meanwhile, Civilizations and World System~ is a lucid introduction to the other great issues at stake in the analysis of world-historical change, both for practitioners striving to remain au courant and for their graduate and undergraduate students, who could a~k for no better textbook. It deserves many readers. [Page 235] Journal of World-Systems Research[ David A. Smith and JozscfBorocz, eds. A New World Order?: Global Transformation in the Late Twentieth Century Westport, Connecticut: Pracgcr, 1995. xii+253 pp. ISBN 0-313-29573-5, $59.95 (hardcover) ISBN 0-275-95122-7, $19.95 (paper) Reviewed by Alvin Y. So Department of Sociology, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the East Bloc, U.S. President George Bush declared the beginning of a "new world order." To the conservatives, the overthrow of European communism signaled an ultimate victory for the U.S., a sweeping vindication of global capitalism, and even "the end of history." Titled "A New World Order?" the aim of this volume is to debunk the conservative interpretations of the contemporary global situation. The chapters of this volume were selected from conference papers presented at the April 1994 Political Economy of the World-System annual conference held at Irvine, California. They address many of the most pressing issues raised by the global transformations of the late twentieth century. The chapters arc divided into three main themes: (1) the nature of the structural transformation in the contemporary period; (2) the regional ramifications of global transformations in the Middle East, the European Community, and Asia-Pacific: and (3) peoples' responses to global transformations. [Page 236] Journal of World-Systems Research First, how is the worldwide process of global restructuring best conceptualized? Is the world-economy undergoing a fundamental change? Robert J.S. Ross's chapter argues that a new, qualitatively different variant of capitalism has emerged in the last quarter of this century. Different from the "monopoly capitalism" in the early and the mid-twentieth century, the distinguishing feature of "global capitalism" in the late twentieth century is the global mobility of capital. Globalization becomes the major lever by which capital extracts surplus from labor and gains favorable policies from states throughout the world. The emergence of global capitalism shifts the balance of class forces toward capital, leading to the decline of the bargaining power of labor unions and the relative autonomy of the state. Like Robert Ross, Philip McMichacl also argues that the world is on the threshold of a major transition in the political regulation of economic activity: from a primarily national to a primarily global form of regulation. Recent episodes of global restructuring undermine national forms of political-economic organization. In the wake of the debt crises of the 1970s and under the pressure of multilateral agencies, global firms, and global and regional free trade agreements (FI As), a new kind of colonialism emerged under which transnational forces have increasingly subsumed the powers of nation-states to police labor and enforce market discipline. The paradigmatic ca~cs arc the imposition of "structural adjustment" in Africa and Latin America, where agencies like the World Bank and the lMF dictated policy changes that seriously eroded the prerogatives of sovereign states. Ross and McMichacl have contributed by showing that in the late twentieth century transnational forces gain much leverage while workers and state lose it. Still, a~ Jozscf Borocz and David A. Smith have remarked in the Introduction of the volume, researchers may wonder whether "global capital mobility" or corporate "colonization" of states arc entirely new phenomena, although the forms they take may be. [Page 237] Journal of World-Systems Research Second, what arc the regional ramifications of the global transformations in the late twentieth century? How arc they related to simultaneous changes in states and geopolitics? ln the Middle Ea~t, the end of the Cold War wa~ quickly followed by the Gulf War. Cynthia Siemsen Maki and Walter L. Goldfrank deploy the concepts of hegemonic cycles and scmipcriphcral mobility to explore some of the causes and consequences of the Gulf War. Their chapter points to the ambiguous, tenuous nature of U.S. hegemonic decline, Iraqi scmipcriphcral mobility, a~ well a~ the demise of the stabilizing Soviet counterbalance in the Middle Ea~t a~ critical triggers to war. The oil- ba~cd "rcnticr state" in Iraq provided Saddam Hussein with the political maneuverability to attempt military conquest a~ a means of a~ccnt, but led to disa~trous consequences. ln Europe, the European Union (EU) since the 1980s ha~ promoted a hegemonic project to compete with the U.S. and Japan for global domination. However, Denis O'Hcarn's chapter shows that the EU's central aim of incrca~ing the competitiveness of the largest and most technologically advanced firms, sectors, and regions threatens to exacerbate uneven development among its regions. The EU's hegemonic project, in particular, is pushing the countries of "the European periphery" (Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Ireland) toward continued economic marginality, poverty, and unemployment. While the hegemonic project ha~ intensified regional pcriphcralization in the EU, Richard C. Hill and Kuniko Fujita's chapter argues that the Japanese project ha~ led to a pattern of "flying geese" in Ea~t Asia. ln this framework, the technologically advanced nation of Japan is the head goose which leads the way with continuous industrial upgrading and new product development, while the Ea~t Asian NlEs and Southca~t Asian states follow along a~ recipients of industries that arc no longer profitable in Japan itself. Subsequently, Japanese foreign investment complement~ and strengthens the comparative advantage in investing and receiving countries alike. [Page 238] Journal of World-Systems Research This benign view of Japanese investment is implicitly challenged in Frederic Dcyo's study of state and labor in Thailand's industrial restructuring. In the Thai context, the Japanese/East Asian investments and ncolibcral reforms have not led to industrial upgrading of the enterprises. Instead, they have encouraged a "market-despotic" labor regime to develop, increasing hardships on labor, and undercutting the capacity of organized labor to contest new managerial strategics. In addition, Stephen Bunker and Paul S. Ciccantcll explain Japan's bid for hegemony, not by the flying geese framework, but by the critical role of transport and raw materials supply. Thus, Japanese economic success owes much to Japan's ability to secure a stable supply of raw materials via Japanese shipping and shipbuilding which made possible the development of both the Japanese steel industry and a diversified industrial economy based on low -cost-imported raw materials. The final theme of the volume centers on people's responses to global transformation. Have "anti-systemic" forces risen up to counter the restructuring processes? What is the prospect that new social movements can resist and transform the capitalist world- cconomy? There arc several chapters on ethnic mobilization and labor, urban struggles, and environmental movements. Timothy J. Scrasc maintains that the "culturalist" approach to globalization has encouraged the commodification of the causes of indigenous people (via the selling of "native" products) and obfuscates the political- cconomic underpinnings of"ncw social movements." For instance, many Indian insurgent groups that seem to be based on religious fervor or ethnic chauvinism arc responding to material deprivation and inequities generated by capitalist restructuring. In her ethnographic study of Indian leather workers, Ruchira Ganguly-Scrasc examines how the transnationalization of the footwear industry had destroyed the livelihoods of traditional artisans, leading to the emergence of fundamentalist ideologies and the reinforcement of gender hierarchies. In the chapter on Zurich, Switzerland, Stefan Kipfer traces the urban struggles between a corporate "growth coalition" (that pushed for development and internationalization of the central business district) and popular forces (that wanted to preserve neighborhoods). In the chapter on global ecological movements, Sing Chew shows how environmental degradation during the course of capital accumulation consistently engenders social movements across the globe that resist the destruction of nature. Subsequently, Chew argues that ecological movements have the potential to be transnational and transfonnativc. [Page 239] Journal of World-Systems Research In the last chapter, Andre C. Drainville traces the transformation of "left internationalism" from the "socialists, Marxists, and anarchists" in the nineteenth century to various "international solidarity" movements of the present. These contemporary "Left international" movements arc based on a variety of issues that connect concerns about global capitalism with struggles for labor rights, gender equality, environmental protection, racial/ethnic equality, and so forth. The "Left international" movements arc united, not by shared allegiances to political programs and ideologies, but by a shared experience of marginality during the present global restructuring. These movements arc radical because they reveal the incrca~ing social fragility of the new world order and because they attempt to gain social control over production in the particular setting of the world-economy where it is most fragile. My only complaint about this volume is that it ha~ not included one or more chapters on the downfall of Soviet communism, the transformation in Ea~t Europe, or the transition from state socialism to capitalism. Other than that, I enjoyed reading this excellent volume. It is highly informative and full of insightful analysis. Thus, this volume is indispensable for any researcher who would like to know more the nature and ramifications of the global transformations in the late twentieth century. In addition, since the chapters arc so well-written, this volume could be used a~ a text in upper-level courses on development, political economy, and world history a~ well. [Page 240] Journal of World-Systems Research