JWSR, Vol. XI, Number 1, July 2005, Complete Issue  Book Reviews journal of world-systems research, xi, i, july , – http://jwsr.ucr.edu issn -x Joe Bandy and Jackie Smith, eds. Coalitions Across Borders: Transnational Protest and the Neoliberal Order Reviewed by Angela G. Mertig John H. Bodley Power of Scale: A Global History Approach Reviewed by Th omas D. Hall & Kimberly Peyser Wilson P. Dizard Jr. Inventing Public Diplomacy: Th e Story of the U.S. Information Agency Reviewed by Andrew Austin Victor M. Ortíz-González El Paso: Local Frontiers at a Global Crossroads Reviewed by Dag MacLeod John M. Talbot Grounds for Agreement: Th e Political Economy of the Coff ee Commodity Chain Reviewed by Paul K. Gellert JWSR Call for Book Reviewers Th e jwsr Book Review department publishes reviews of books on the same topics for which jwsr solicits articles, as described in the jwsr editorial policy. We also disseminate reviews of reference works and other books containing quantitative or qualitative data useful for world systems research. We solicit volunteers to review books. If you would like to write book reviews for jwsr, please notify the Book Review Editor of your areas of interest and any other information which may be helpful for determining which books are best suited for you. We also encourage suggestions of books for review from readers of jwsr, book authors, and publishers. For more information, please contact: Edward Kick, books@jwsr.org Advertising space is also available. For more information, please contact: Eric Titolo, ads@jwsr.org advertisement http://jwsr.ucr.edu Journal of World-Systems Research Book Reviews  Joe Bandy and Jackie Smith, eds. . Coalitions Across Borders: Transnational Protest and the Neoliberal Order. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefi eld.  pages, isbn --- paper. http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com In this volume, Bandy and Smith have collected several essays that address the successes, issues and barriers in the development of transnational social movement coalitions. Th e coalitions discussed in the volume deal with social protest against “the neoliberal order” or what has been more commonly referred to, at least in the United States, as economic globalization. Th e essays take a sympa- thetic approach to the development of these coalitions (albeit with some critique), each highlighting specifi c case studies of transnational coalitions and protest campaigns. Some of the essays ramble more than others, but each provides important insight into the processes of coalition development across social movement sector, organizational, and national boundaries. After a brief introduction to the volume, the book is divided into four over- lapping sections. Part  addresses some key challenges faced by transnational coalitions; Part  presents two examples of successful coalitions; Part  focuses specifi cally on labor coalitions and issues; and Part  presents two cases of spe- cifi c transnational campaigns along with a concluding chapter by the editors. Smith and Bandy’s introduction notes that “globalization” is commonly por- trayed as purely an economic phenomenon which displaces local and national control over economic transactions, giving political and economic power to transnational economic bodies such as the World Trade Organization and mul- tinational corporations. A common assumption of globalization’s supporters is that giving primacy to the economic sphere will “trickle down” to have a positive impact upon other elements of social life throughout the world. Th is version of globalization is referred to as “globalization from above.” However, this version of globalization is contested by numerous contemporary protest movements. In contrast to “globalization,” these protest movements are involved in what Smith and Bandy call “internationalization,” or the increasing integration of the world through civil society. Th e development of “transnational relations among non- governmental networks, social movements and intergovernmental organizations such as the UN, which lay the foundation for a democratic global governance and a world polity” (p. ) form a “globalization from below” that directly challenges “globalization from above.” From a social movements perspective, “globalization from below” requires completely new tactics, strategies and frames. Lobbying a national government makes less sense when a target company or agency (e.g., the WTO) is not bound to a single government and whose offi ces and impacts cross national boundaries. Th e need to challenge entities beyond one’s own national boundaries requires that activists and organizations learn more about the workings of foreign govern- ments, to work with their counterparts in other countries, and to adopt diff erent frames about social issues that enhance their international impact. Smith and Bandy provide some evidence of the extent to which transnational social move- ment organizations (TSMOs) have developed around the theme of globalization (or multiple themes subsumed under the impacts of globalization); however, they also note that a substantial portion of transnational protest/social movement activity takes place outside formalized channels, represented by less formalized networks and coalitions (which are less easily quantifi ed). Unfortunately, they also note that TSMOs (and by implication many of their less formalized coun- terparts) tend to duplicate aspects of global inequality, namely that TSMOs rarely have memberships that span North and South (i.e., the “global” North and South defi ned by economic position as opposed solely to geographical location) and that TSMO participants typically come from countries with already estab- lished democracies and some recognition of human rights. In Part  (“Movements and Challenges”), MacDonald presents a discussion of how, despite using the language of inclusion and diversity, transnational coali- tions against free trade in the Americas, as well as the academic literature on these coalitions, have tended to exclude gender issues and analysis. She argues that we cannot assume that actors aligned with these protest coalitions are “inherently progressive, inclusive, and democratic” and that, like anything else, we must “subject their claims to careful analysis” (p. ). Also in Part , Faber addresses the development of environmental justice movements and frames in the United States. He asserts that the framing of environmental justice in the United States has focused almost solely on issues of race and minority status, which have made it diffi cult to draw ties with the developing world where envi- ronmental justice is “largely a politics of the majority” (p. ) struggling for their basic human rights and survival. Yet, he argues that the increasing recognition “that the abuse of human rights and the environment go hand in hand,” has the potential to create a “radically new international environmental movement” (pp. , ). Part  (“Models of Coalition”) begins with a chapter by Cullen on a success- ful coalition among diverse (and often ideologically dissimilar) NGOs within the European Union (referred to as the Platform) to address numerous impacts of European economic integration. Among the factors that motivated coopera- tion among these NGOs were shared general social agendas, political constraints and fi nancial resources. Chief among the factors that allowed them to manage internal confl icts were: () experienced leaders who could bridge between groups http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com/Catalog/Singlebook.shtml?command=search&db=^DB\Catalog.db&eqSKUdatarq=0742523969 Journal of World-Systems Research Book Reviews  and perspectives; () a focus on “transversal issues” that highlight similarities that “are perceived as more important than existing diff erences” (p. ); and () providing “added value” to each coalition member (i.e., coalition membership enabled access to resources that each member organization might not have been able to get on their own). Wood’s chapter in part  analyzes the development of Peoples’ Global Action (PGA), which began as a transnational coalition to coordinate global, massive street protests against “globalization from above.” Th is coalition managed to maintain its cohesion even while it resisted formalization, which many argue would have aided its ability to coordinate eff orts among such a diverse group of entities. Because organizations and activists from the global North often have more resources, they ironically tend to dominate coalitions attempting to alleviate global inequities; yet, the PGA explicitly developed rules and structures to avoid Northern domination. In Part  (“Perspectives on Labor Solidarity”), Brooks provides a disturbing account of how activism intended to help residents of the global South can actu- ally end up hurting them. She provides a close up look at the fi ght against child labor in the garment industry in Bangladesh, juxtaposing U.S. activists’ concerns for the treatment of children with the economic consequences to Bangladeshi families and Bangladeshi protest of U.S. protectionism and imperialism. Th e focus on child labor alone allowed activists—and businesses—to ignore other important social issues and promoted the paternalistic notion that residents of the global South, particularly women and children, are passive, voiceless victims of global development. Waterman’s chapter focuses on the international labor movement and the degree to which it has developed ties with other movements that oppose “globalization from above.” Th ere is a tension between the old, insti- tutionalized labor movement(s) and “the possibility of a new social movement labor internationalism” where labor can be an equal partner with other social movement actors defying the neoliberal order (p. ). Th e fi nal chapter in part  by Seidman analyzes the development of corporate codes of conduct (the Sullivan Principles) used to address activist concerns about American companies doing business in apartheid South Africa. Th ese codes were monitored by private agen- cies and enabled concerned consumers to adjust their purchases based on infor- mation provided about the companies. Positive lessons to be learned from this case with regard to contemporary transnational coalitions are that international pressure is usually necessary to get corporations to change their behavior (or at least to change their reporting of it); that the use of organizational pressure (e.g., divestment of accounts by universities) as opposed to that of individuals is key to getting corporations to respond; and that moral clarity is also important in creating change (i.e., no one could really argue that apartheid was a good thing). However, the dubious way in which these codes were developed, monitored and evaluated left many questions about their actual impact on communities in South Africa and whether such a code system currently could be utilized to hold multinational corporations accountable. Part  (“ Transnational Campaigns”) begins with a chapter by Juska and Edwards that analyzes a U.S.-Poland coalition between the Animal Welfare Institute and Samoobrona, a radical Polish farmer’s organization, to oppose a large pork producer’s intentions to create large scale, vertically integrated pork production facilities in Poland. Th e presence of strong national movements in both the U.S. and Poland, the ideological compatibility of the two organizations involved, a favorable political opportunity structure which made industrial live- stock production less palatable to Polish leaders, and the clever strategizing and eff ective leadership of the two organizations all worked together to make the campaign a transnational coalition success story. Foster’s chapter provides an insider’s point of view with regard to the relatively informal Trinational Alliance against NAFTA. While the coalition failed to derail NAFTA, it spawned several other accomplishments, namely that it helped activists and organizations within North America build up expertise on trade and policy issues, it fostered personal linkages and collaboration across diff erent movement sectors and across borders, and it enhanced public knowledge of trade impacts. As Bandy and Smith note in their concluding chapter, each of the essays pre- sented in the volume document the ways transnational networks and coalitions have formed and continue to form “to coalesce into a transnational civil society” (p. ). Such networks face both “internal confl icts and external limitations,” exemplifi ed by the essays herein. Sympathetically, the authors note: “understand- ing how activists have managed to forge unity amid diversity will uncover the possibilities for developing the democratic potentials of civil society and poten- tially the world system” (p. ). Based on their own observations and review of the literature, as well as the essays included in the volume, Bandy and Smith list several social conditions that they feel enable the development of transnational networks: () the presence of international organizations—governmental or non-governmental—that facilitate networks; () the presence of well-organized national level movements; () the presence of well-organized foreign movement allies; () pre-existing similarities among movements of diff erent societies; () the capacity for regular communication between national level movements; () institutions—government and/or corporate—that are open to change; () eco- nomic conditions that enable movement resource building; () the absence of international political confl ict; and () mass public dissent. Similarly, they note that there are four sources of internal confl ict that need to be addressed within transnational social movement networks: () resource disparities; () confl icts over organizational and leadership forms; () confl icts over identity; and () Journal of World-Systems Research Book Reviews  confl icts about goals and strategies. Th e authors further identify four internal activities that promote the successful development of coalitions: () the commit- ted and eff ective leadership of movement brokers—leaders who can readily “go between” groups, perspectives and/or identities; () the development of “transna- tional public spheres” or forums for coalition action (e.g., conferences); () fl ex- ible and democratic organizational forms and cultures which strive to protect members’ autonomy even while uniting vastly diverse entities; and () promoting the perceived success of coalition, as success tends to bolster support for and membership in a coalition. In conclusion, this book serves as an excellent early attempt to understand transnational social movements and coalitions. As a social movements text, it engages several theoretical areas, including resource mobilization, political pro- cess, new social movements, and framing. Despite having to wade through an occasional sea of acronyms, readers will fi nd that the book provides a wealth of information about specifi c movements across several countries. Methodologically the essays revolve around mostly qualitative and case study analysis. In addition to being a worthwhile read to activists involved in the issues of “globalization from below,” this book would serve as a nice addition to courses in social move- ments, social change, world systems, macro-sociology, contemporary politics, and globalization. Angela G. Mertig Department of Sociology and Anthropology Middle Tennessee State University a1mertig@mtsu.edu © 2005 Angela G. Mertig John H. Bodley. . Power of Scale: A Global History Approach. Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe.  + xviii pages, isbn --- paper. http://www.mesharpe.com John Bodley is best known for his textbooks and writings on indigenous peoples, but in this book he makes an interesting and provocative foray into long-term social change. His experience in textbook writing shows through in a clear exposition. Th ere is little mention of world-systems analysis, but this does not mean that it is not germane to world-systems issues, especially world-systems evolution. Indeed, Power of Scale is a helpful introduction to the many debates and issues involved in world-systems evolution. His basic thesis, is individual drive for power has generated growth and created social problems. Th ese, in turn, inhere to a large degree in the problems of scale and size: the larger a group the greater the potential for hier- archy which some individuals will promote and turn to their own advantage. It is an avowedly anti-class argument. While many readers will debate and argue against the anti-class argument, many will fi nd the scale discussion insightful. He begins with a proposition that power networks construct what he calls “imperia.” An imperia can refer to a household, a chiefdom, a state, or a world- system. By scale he means absolute size. Size, he argues, has several threshold levels, typically at orders of magnitude. Elites direct social growth, concentrat- ing power, but succumb to “human weakness” and turn that power increasingly to their own benefi t, even while noting that larger imperia can benefi t society at large. While emphasizing individual action and responsibility, he also rejects claims that unfettered capitalism is good for society. In fact, its major problem is continued, uncontrolled growth. He sees three broad categories of imperia: tribal, imperial, and commercial (approximately what others call kin-ordered, tributary, and capitalist modes of accumulation). Bodley argues that tribal imperia have little incentive to pro- duce more than they need. “Imperial imperia” drive toward constant expan- sion to feed the egos of elites, often leading to overextension and collapse, and subordinate the economy to political ends, an argument that draws on Karl Polanyi. With the appearance of commercial imperia, or capitalism, groups of individuals, in the form of corporations, push for constant growth and exten- sion of commodifi cation. Th is brief summary does not do justice to the subtlety and fi nesse in his argument. Th e nuances are better illustrated in the second chapter which provides detailed examples: drawing heavily on the Ashaninka in the Amazon Rainforest, early Th ai kingdoms, late Th ai and Balinese “imperia,” and early United States. From these examples he returns to the issue of scale. Th is is where he pro- vides the most insights. He notes the pervasiveness of “power laws,” where changes in organization typically co-occur with orders of magnitude or size. He argues that size, for societies, may be maladaptive in that it allows larger, less adaptable societies to wipe out smaller, more adaptable ones. Because of limited human cognitive capacity, say, the ability to be closely familiar with order of magnitude  people, larger societies must invent some sort of hier- archy to persist. Th ere are two points here. First, this is not a teleological argu- ment. Rather, only those societies or groups that develop some sort of hierarchy can grow and remain stable above certain thresholds, typically powers of ten over . Second, change and growth are not “natural” or “inevitable.” Rather they are the result of actions of individuals or small groups of elites who benefi t directly from them. Once hierarchies exist, it is possible, and in the interest of elites, to grow even larger by building even steeper hierarchies. Th e second point is the one most likely to raise dispute. http://www.mesharpe.com/mall/resultsa.asp?Title=The+Power+of+Scale:+A+Global+History+Approach Journal of World-Systems Research Book Reviews  Chapter four describes how elites take over. Bodley is careful to note that this is not a conspiracy theory. Elites do compete. However, they have the resources to maximize their own interests over the interests of others. He illustrates by detailed examination of the works of Carneiro and of Leach showing how lead- ers use position to gain more, and in the process produce further growth. Th e following chapter explores the growth of European elites, again illustrating the power of scale. Chapter six unpacks Bodley’s version of the growth of the com- mercial elites in the United States. A key point from these chapters is that it is the formation of the fi rst imperia that is crucial. Once they are created, the pro- cesses are regular, if specifi c to the particular elites who shape that growth. Th at is, while individual actions are crucial, they are part of a larger, logical process. Th e last three chapters examine possible counter-imperia. Key among these are the resistance of “tribal” peoples against states. He then re-examines Levelers, Luddites, Owenites, Anarchists and so on as possible counter-imperia. He presents evidence that the English poor did not benefi t from early industrial growth. Even what he calls the Utopian Capitalists, such as the Rockefeller Foundation, fail to solve any of the inequities. Again, growth inevitably leads to concentration of power and wealth, making matters worse, not better. Th is, of course, is not news. What is new here is harnessing this analysis to issues of scale and arguing that the triumph of neoliberalism is actually due to actions of a rather narrow elite. Th roughout these discussions Bodley claims to refute Marxian class analysis. But his argument can be readily reinterpreted to sup- port it, especially in those forms that examine class segments and class fractions. Still, he does hold specifi c actors accountable for the current state of aff airs. He concludes that an optimal scale for human and humane existence would be for societies in the range of one to two hundred thousand. He does note, however, that some technologies, like telecommunication may need a minimum population base of ten million to be workable. Th e key points, as Bodley sees them, are to abandon the ideology of growth and to develop smaller scale societ- ies. He notes that tribal imperia have minimal inequality, but more importantly have exhibited an ability to remain more or less stable, in the same ecological environments for centuries, and in some cases millennia. Th is is something that no state, ancient or contemporary, has been able to achieve. What is missing in this proscription is any suggestion of how to democratically and collectively choose no growth as a goal. In such a brief sketch, Bodley’s argument may seem overly facile. His detailed discussions, however, are full of insights. Not surprisingly given his anthropological work on and with indigenous peoples, he is at his best when he is discussing “tribal” imperia and the transition to states. Still, his ideas on scale and his attempt to show that there are specifi c movers and shakers behind the growth of scale are insightful and thought provoking. His main contribution to the discussion of many old problems is this new angle of approach and an analy- sis of scale as a factor in, and of, itself. In this sense his analysis complements and supplements other work. Last, but far from least, the pedagogical value of Power of Scale should be noted. Th e book can be very useful in courses to open a variety of discussions and debates, even if it is used as a foil to develop other arguments. Bodley’s argu- ments that “bigger is not always better” and that elite power means decreased human rights for commoners are clear and provocative to students. He makes a compelling argument that one cannot examine the East India Company, the colonization of the global South, or certainly any of the world wars without considering their global repercussions, including politics and human rights. Th us, Power of Scale can be an excellent introduction to other texts on world- systems analysis, especially for students who are only beginning to encounter serious approaches to global social science. Th omas D. Hall Department of Sociology and Anthropology Colgate University & DePauw University thall@depauw.edu and Kimberly Peyser Department of Sociology and Anthropology Colgate University kpeyser@mail.colgate.edu © 2005 Th omas D. Hall & Kimberly Peyser Wilson P. Dizard Jr. . Inventing Public Diplomacy: Th e Story of the U.S. Information Agency. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.  pages, isbn --- hardcover. http://www.rienner.com/viewbook.cfm?BOOKID=1420 In the manufacture of consent for its policies and practices abroad, the power elite of the American Empire—the dominant corporate, military, and political sectors—depends heavily on the arts of propaganda and public diplomacy. To be sure, the fi st of force always lies in reserve for the recalcitrant, a fact to which recent history in Afghanistan and Iraq attests. Nonetheless, shaping public attitudes towards the means and ends of US foreign policy has proven an effi cient standard practice for the expansion of global domination. Over the past fi fty years prob- ably as many boots have stepped onto foreign soil via diplomatic designs as through armed means. Inventing Public Diplomacy, by Wilson P. Dizard Jr., is a friendly examination of a key com- http://www.rienner.com/viewbook.cfm?BOOKID=1420 Journal of World-Systems Research Book Reviews  ponent of the American project to shape world opinion: the US Information Agency (USIA). Of the multitude of published works concerning US public diplomacy (too many to recount here), observers from points beyond the charmed circle of government operatives have penned the majority. However, the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST) and the Diplomatic and Consular Offi cers, Retired (DACOR), have joined forces to produce a book series organiz- ing the history of diplomacy and intelligence services from the standpoint of the diplomat and the information agent. Th e ADST is functionally and structurally close to formal state power. An NGO whose mission is to strengthen the effi cacy of US diplomacy, it is located on the campus of the National Foreign Aff airs Training Center, home to the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute (FSI), and works alongside the FSI to complement the latter’s work, managing the archives of US diplomatic history and providing these materials to historians and diplomats. Th us the ADST plays a role in the way global history is shaped, both in the manner in which the past is recorded and interpreted by historians, and by supplying a ready and ideologically-consistent history for diplomats to base their present and future work upon. Inventing Public Diplomacy is a product of this project. Dizard’s account of US propaganda operations is that of a dedicated insider. From  to , he served in the State Department and the US Information Service (USIS). His expertise is international communications. Th e aim of Inventing Public Diplomacy is to measure the ideological impact of the US Information Agency and its precursors. Dizard’s account is sympa- thetic, although his appraisal is at times candid, such as his acknowledgement that Reagan’s Central American adventures, which entailed extensive use of the agency, involved illegal conduct. He is also frank in depicting the agency as a propaganda operation—one that matched the operations of other countries and regions with whom the US competed for global advantage. However, he fails to discuss as problematic the deeper aims of the agency and its sister organizations, namely, their function as instruments of global capitalist domination. Moreover, he fails in an explicit objective of his study: to substantiate his claim that, because the agency refl ected the national strategic interests of the day, its structure and practices are explicable within analyses of that larger context. In the fi nal analysis, because of Dizard’s loyalty to the agency, the book fails to develop a critical his- tory of either the USIA or the geopolitical context. Th e book begins with an overview of the USIA. Created in , state elites designed the USIA as an element of public diplomacy in the Cold War milieu. Th e mission of the agency was to present to contested parts of the world an ide- alized image of America that would promote foreign support for the economic and political aims of the United States. Dizard contends that until the USIA, America had no global propaganda system. He attributes this to “American exceptionalism,” theorizing that isolationism and disengagement with European cultural models were the major causes of America’s delayed entry into ideologi- cal warfare. Th is insular view of the world dominated elite consciousness until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on June , . Much as the attack on the World Trade Center on September ,  shattered America’s sense of invul- nerability, Pearl Harbor made a big world seem much smaller. In response, US elites built a global communications apparatus. Th e path to the USIA was a blend of international restructuring, his- torical conjuncture, the evolving confi guration of intelligence and propaganda networks, and the personalities of leaders and sponsors. Th e Offi ce of War Information (OWI) established the Voice of America (VOA) shortwave news service in February  to take advantage of new communications technologies that had emerged from WWI. Th e overseas component of the OWI was the USIS. Nelson A. Rockefeller pushed the Roosevelt administration to embrace a larger role in the struggle against the Nazis, especially in checking their grow- ing infl uence in the southern hemisphere of the Americas. Th rough the Offi ce of the Coordinator of Inter-American Aff airs (OCIA), which Rockefeller ran out of the State Department, the United States distributed pro-American press throughout South America and the Caribbean. Dizard credits Rockefeller with having devised the template for the US IA, the purpose of which was to penetrate Europe with pro-American propaganda in a fashion similar to US American operations. A related eff ort was the Coordinator of Information (COI), also cre- ated by Roosevelt in . Th is agency morphed into the Offi ce of Strategic Services (OSS) in . Th e COI and OSS represented the fi rst institutional steps towards the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency. Th e principal activity of the US propaganda eff orts during the late s and s was to counter what President Harry Truman called “imperialistic communism” and its “propaganda of slavery.” In , Truman signed into law the Smith-Mundt Act, which established ideological operations as a permanent part of US foreign policy. Legislative backing played a vital role in legitimating Truman’s “Campaign of Truth,” a propaganda off ensive coordinating the infor- mation services of the United States and other capitalist countries. Th is direc- tion fi gured into the design of psychological operations that accompanied the creation of the National Security Council and the CIA in . Th e academic community, including research units at MIT, Harvard, and Columbia, joined with the government intelligence community in designing psychological opera- tions, in turn contributing to the development of the public opinion and public relations industry.¹ Corporations with an interest in overseas operations and Journal of World-Systems Research Book Reviews  markets fi nanced the operations. Largely based upon a particular reading of George Kennan’s thinking about the motives and nature of the Soviet Union, a view of the world emerged in which communications sciences were seen as a vital weapon in political warfare. When Eisenhower formally consolidated the various propaganda agencies in  under the name USIA, the US commercial media, which was likewise extending its infl uence over world markets, moved to coordinate its activities even more closely with the government. Th e goal of the public and private mix of information was to shape cultural attitudes and present the United States, its products and services, as an attractive alternative to communism, as well as foster the development of business climates favorable to overseas investment. USIA and corporate propaganda targeted Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, countries with which, according to Dizard, the United States had limited previ- ous cultural engagement. Th e USIA used several methods to preach the gospel of Americanism abroad, including shortwave radio, leafl ets, magazines, news bulletins, pamphlets, a worldwide library network, exhibits on American life, and exchange programs. Th e activities of the USIA overlapped with the DOD and CIA, and USIA subsidies were vital in helping US media corporations establish fi rms in foreign countries. During the Kennedy years, elites restructured the USIA to keep pace with rapidly changing world realities and to refl ect a unifi ed ideological response to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s declaration of “wars of national libera- tion.” According to the US intelligence establishment, the USSR was sponsor- ing communists and left-wing guerrilla groups throughout the periphery of the capitalist world economy. Propagandists depicted global communism as a red army on the march. Th e US responded to the Soviet threat with modernization theory, a set of assumptions that posited that the infusion of Western ideals and values would, if adopted, catapult the backward peoples of the undevel- oped world into modernity. Th e USIA scaled back operations in Europe and Japan and stepped up activities in the periphery to advance the off ensive. As a point of comparison, Dizard documents that in  the USIA had twenty- four posts in thirteen African countries. Four years later, there were fi fty-fi ve posts in thirty-three countries on the African continent. To give its propaganda operations more polish, the Kennedy administration brought CBS documen- tarian Edward R. Murrow on board. Murrow believed the agency should not just inform but persuade. He oversaw propaganda operations during such tense moments as Operation Mongoose, the covert program to sabotage the Castro regime in Cuba, the disastrous Bay of Pigs incident, where CIA-trained exiles attempted to overthrow the Cuban government, and the Cuban missile crisis in , in which the Soviet Union endeavored to build missile sites in Cuba. During the s and s, the USIA took advantage of several opportuni- ties and struggled with many challenges. Th e agency successfully exploited the triumphs of the Apollo space program to project the image of a strong America abroad. Advancements in civil rights, however ineff ective these were in dealing with the racist heart of America, allowed USIA propagandists to claim vic- tory in the struggle for racial justice, which the Declaration of Human Rights had made an explicit priority in . Th e always-present specter of nuclear holocaust continued to present problems for the USIA; the agency confronted a world that understood the problem of nuclear weapons through the prisms of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Th e scandalous Nixon administration and the appointment of the ideologically-driven Frank Shakespeare to the USIA, which caused the agency’s objectivity to come into question, presented still more chal- lenges. In response to the ideological bent of the agency under Nixon, Jimmy Carter moved to curtail the USIA’s propaganda eff orts by suppressing activities he deemed “covert, manipulative, or propagandistic,” and renaming the agency as the US International Communications Agency. Carter’s attempt to steer the agency back towards its original mission—as objective information disseminat- ing agency—would be short lived. Politicization of the USIA reemerged during the s under Ronald Reagan. Although changing international communications patterns, such as commercial information fi rms and advanced communications technologies, complicated the agency’s mission, Reagan’s desire to wage intensive ideological warfare against the “Evil Empire” guaranteed that the USIA would see growth in its budget and a more aggressive outlook. Reagan doubled the USIA budget (its annual budget reached nearly one billion dollars by the end of the decade). Th e administration threw out the policies on balanced news treatment, and the USIA became a propaganda organ for the Reagan regime. Th e USIA became closely associated with the Special Planning Group (SPG), created in , an association that made the agency a policy participant and not just a mouthpiece for US policy goals. Th e SPG was behind the creations of Project Democracy, which Reagan later restructured as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Th e SPG, along with the State Department’s Offi ce of Public Diplomacy, became part of Reagan’s shadow government during the Iran-Contra Aff air. ¹. For a detailed historical account of this, see Christopher Simpson, Th e Science of Coercion: Communications Research and Psychological Warfare – (Oxford University Press, ). Journal of World-Systems Research Book Reviews  Th e last chapters in Dizard’s book end the study of the USIA in an abrupt manner, despite the number of pages dedicated to the matter. We learn that in , Clinton returned public diplomacy operations to the Department of States and eff ectively closed down the USIA as an independent agency. In put- ting the agency to bed, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright eulogized that it was “the most eff ective anti-propaganda institution on the face of the earth.” Th e State Department takeover put operations formerly conducted by the USIA quite low on the priority list, evidenced by the fact that President George W. Bush waited nine months before appointing an undersecretary of state for Public Diplomacy and Public Aff airs. In his conclusion, Dizard suggests that the weakness of USIA-style opera- tions during this period was in large part due to an inability to adapt to changing threats. Terrorist organizations, such as al Qaeda, present a problem for state propaganda operations. As Richard Holbrooke mused, “How can a man in a cave outmaneuver the world’s leading communications society?” Th e US gov- ernment had no method for eff ectively spinning a threat unattached to a state apparatus. In an eff ort to be more eff ective in the “war on terrorism,” the White House took over propaganda production, creating the Coalition Information Center, which ran a -hour war room staff ed with offi cials from the NSC, DOD, CIA, and State Department. Th is was followed in July of  with the creation of the Offi ce of Global Communications. Dizard leaves out much of the story. Because of these omissions, he fails to locate US propaganda operations within the structure of geopolitics and global capitalism. Dizard tells his readers what many of them already know: Th e offi - cial mission of the USIA from its inception through the s was, as Brigadier General Robert McClure put it during the Korean War, to win the “struggle for men’s minds.” Th is was, for US elites, the qualitative essence of “modern war” and it was embodied in the ideological components of Containment policy. Th e USIA’s purpose was to counter Soviet propaganda, what Ayn Rand charac- terized before the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Un-American Activities in  “as anything which gives a good impression of communism as a way of life.” And this the agency did well into the s; under Reagan, in con- junction with the National Security Council, the agency launched the “Project Truth” campaign, parroting Truman’s “Campaign of Truth,” thus book-ending the USIA’s role in the anti-communist crusade. However, Dizard leaves unexplored the consequences of the fall of the Soviet Union. How were the bureaucrats and professionals going to justify the USIA’s existence with the specter of communism no longer haunting the West? Th ere was, it turns out, a pressing need. Guided by Clinton’s foreign policy team, and led by director Joe Duff y, the agency adopted a new role, best articu- lated by the NSA’s Anthony Lake: “the successor to a doctrine of containment must be a strategy of enlargement—enlargement of the world’s free community of market democracies.”² With this charge, the primary mission of the agency shifted from anti-communist activities to pushing liberalization of trade policy. In short, with the Soviets out of the way, the USIA openly pushed the transna- tional project of capitalist globalization. Of course, in the fi nal analysis, the “Clinton Doctrine” was not inconsistent with or even a departure from the founding mission of the USIA, since its goal had really always been to push the virtues of capitalism abroad and involve the private sector in this eff ort. Indeed, the aggressive push for liberalization began under Reagan with the creation of the NED and the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE). Changes in the agency refl ected greater shifts in the process of globalization and state strategy to shape that process. In the s, the development of the global system demanded reorganization of the US propaganda network. In , Clinton, with Congressional backing, brought all nonmilitary state international propaganda operations—including Radio and TV Marti, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Radio Liberty, Voice of America, and Worldnet television—under USIA control. Th e USIA was put to the task of selling international trade agreements, such as NAFTA, and stressing the importance of membership in such transnational organizations as the WTO. It was a prominent preacher of the gospels of deregulation and trade liberalization. Th e agency also pushed for the expansion of NATO, help- ing to transform that Cold War military structure into a transnational security apparatus, as well as collaborated with the Drug Enforcement Administration to regulate global narcotics traffi cking. All of this history is left out of Inventing Public Diplomacy. Finally, Dizard fails to suffi ciently criticize the agency for its failures to articulate its purpose to the US citizenry and to involve non-business interests in shaping a collective vision of the nation’s aims in the world. Th e Smith-Mundt act sought to exclude non-corporate voices by prohibiting the targeting of US audiences with programming aimed at foreign audiences. Th e image of America projected abroad was—and continues to be—neither generated nor consumed by Americans. Nancy Snow contrasts the alternatives: “Millions of private citi- zens, both here and abroad, are using their collective vision to promote a one- ². Anthony Lake, “From Containment to Enlargement,” Address delivered at the School of Advanced International Studies, Th e Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, September , . Journal of World-Systems Research Book Reviews  world community—not a one-world market—where diverse cultures are united in eff orts to combat poverty, oppression, pollution, and collective violence. In contrast to the USIA’s boardroom-style globalization, many of these citizen activists favor more freedom of movement for people and greater regulation on the movement of capital.”³ Clearly, then, the initial design and guiding vision of the USIA was to serve as a propaganda instrument for the imperial project to spread capitalism across the planet, illustrating Marx and Engels’ famous axiom that the executive of the capitalist state is but an organ for pursuing the common interests of the capitalist class. Andrew Austin Department of Social Change and Development University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Green Bay, Wisconsin austina@uwgb.edu © 2005 Andrew Austin Victor M. Ortíz-González. . El Paso: Local Frontiers at a Global Crossroads. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.  pages, isbn --- paper. http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/O/ortiz-gonzalez_el.html Victor M. Ortíz-González’s El Paso: Local Frontiers at a Global Crossroads tackles the complex phenomenon of economic and social integration at one of its most intense points of contact: the U.S.-Mexico border. At fi rst glance the book would appear to off er a feast for the reader. Ortíz- González weaves threads of post-modern theory, Marxist geography, and contemporary political economy into a series of ethnographic studies of concrete responses to globalization in El Paso, Texas. Th e micro- and macro-approaches combined with empiri- cally grounded theory is intuitively appealing. So too is the general point that Ortíz-Gonález seeks to make: the dual function of the border as a bridge and a barrier between Mexico and the United States creates unique challenges for the residents of the region. Local interests are consistently subordinated to non-local interests—“alienated instrumentali- ties”—while the dominant images of the region as a site of transgression and hybridity fail to capture the reality. Unfortunately the eff ort falls short. Th e book is theoretically weak and unwieldy in its organization. Th ere are also serious problems of data that stem from the author’s apparent disdain of “evidence”—a word he felt needed to be placed in quotes at one point (p. ). And so, instead of theory helping to orga- nize data and the data helping to inform the theory, both theory and data are lost in labyrinths of post-modern jargon without either supporting the central assertions that Ortíz-González makes. On the theoretical front, Ortíz-González uses theory almost ornamentally. Snippets of Michel Foucault, Henri Lefebvre, and David Harvey are introduced and invoked from time to time even when they fail to shed light on the point the author is making. After a series of case studies the reader is informed that these stories “illustrated diff erent spatial practices infl uencing the local labor market and underscored gender and class divisions” (p. ). Apart from the fact that, as with everything in the known universe, the stories all took place “in space,” nowhere is it made clear how these vignettes exemplify “spatial practices.” Nor is there any further clarifi cation of how the distinction between spaces of place and spaces of fl ow or how the notion of “hyperspace” enhance our understanding of life in El Paso or anywhere else on the border. Instead, selected pieces of diff erent theorists are displayed without really engaging any single theory or even an attempt to synthesize or explain contradictory frames of reference. In the absence of an organizing framework, the book meanders. Personal history, anecdotes, observation, speculation, and ethnographic data are all thrown together in border tales of varying length that have an uncertain and uneven relationship to the themes of the book. Some of the most bold and inter- esting assertions are simply left hanging without any apparent eff ort to grapple with providing “evidence” to support them. For example, Ortíz-González argues that border cities are eff ectively “administrative fi ctions” lacking in the “basic administrative capacities to ful- fi ll most residents’ needs” (p. ). It’s an interesting point which, if pursued, might make for interesting reading. How do the overlapping jurisdictions of the various branches of federal, regional and state government (not to men- tion the private jurisdiction of capital and international obligations under the North American Free Trade Agreement) aff ect the abilities of cities to fulfi ll their basic administrative functions? Th e answers are nowhere to be found in the book. Indeed, it is often unclear how exactly the author’s descriptions of El Paso are unique to the border region at all. Ortíz-González argues at one point that the “persistent frontier condition” of El Paso is related to the discrepancy “clearly manifested in the limited control that local workers, entrepreneurs, and ³. Nancy E. Snow, “Foreign Policy in Focus: United States Information Agency,” Interhemispheric Resource Center and Institute for Policy Studies  (), August . http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/O/ortiz-gonzalez_el.html Journal of World-Systems Research Book Reviews  public offi cials have regarding relocation decisions of major global employers” (p. ). Isn’t this what much of the literature on globalization has been arguing for decades now? Lacking both a solid theoretical foundation and systematic organization, the book relies heavily on anecdote and speculation. For example, the author argues at one point that the distrust generated by El Paso’s subordination to non-local interests is demonstrated by “a disproportionate amount of road rage for a city the size of El Paso” (p. ). At another point he asserts that “Millions of people cross the border in both directions” (p. xvii). Whether it’s millions a year, a month, a week, millions more or fewer than last year, is never addressed and ultimately appears not to matter much because, as the author argues later on, “Regardless of actual numbers, the fl ow of immigrants, visitors, and com- muters has major impacts” (p. ). A more empirically-minded reader might think that the actual numbers would be closely related to the impact that the fl ows of immigrants, visitors and commuters have on the city. Indeed, this is a central part of Ortíz-González thesis, that the growing numbers of border crossings and the intensifi ed links between Mexico and the United States have signifi cantly eroded the quality of life on the border. But never mind. Ortíz-González has a wonderful facility with language. He moves adroitly from one tale to another, seeming to enjoy the word play. But ultimately the various points that he makes begin to collide. Ortíz-González argues against the representation of the border as a site of social disorganization and chaos in his critique of García Canclini’s Hybrid Cultures (p. ). And yet, by the conclusion of the book, Ortíz-González has come full circle and argues that the “multiple and irregular developments, the frontier/frontera overlap implodes the border region. Th is implosion creates a persistent chaos and dislocation, perpetuating the dislocating subordination of the region” (pp. –). One of the central assertions of the book—that local interests are subor- dinated to the non-local interests—is undermined not only by the fact that Ortíz-González never actually identifi es a set of interests that can be defi ned as “local” but by the fact that his ethnographic studies illustrate that so-called “local interests” are sharply divided along lines of class and ethnicity. Examples of non-local interests dominating the local look suspiciously like local elites taking advantage of opportunities that are not available to lower-class residents of El Paso (p. ). Given that Ortíz-González’s methodology of choice is ethnography, it seems more than little strange to read about the “incongruous and callous bureaucratic attitudes” of local public-sector workers administering a program for retraining displaced workers and their “myopic emphasis on the workers’ lack of education” (p. ). Ethnography, after all, is supposed to help us learn how others view their reality. Instead, throughout the book we get a picture of how Ortíz-González views the reality of his subjects but not much of a sense of how the inhabitants of El Paso view theirs. Michael Agar argues in his classic on the ethnographic method, Th e Professional Stranger, that the “truth” of stories is less important than the infor- mation that the stories convey about the group that believes them. Th e stories that Ortíz-González shares generally fail to provide that insight. And when he asserts that “the transformations in the region are beyond the scope of paradig- matic pronouncements and of the selective gaze that recognizes only what it already has in mind” (p. ) it is diffi cult not to think that this is actually an apt description of Ortíz-González’s book. Dag MacLeod Offi ce of Court Research Judicial Council / Administrative Offi ce of the Courts dag.macleod@jud.ca.gov © 2005 Dag MacLeod John M. Talbot. . Grounds for Agreement: Th e Political Economy of the Coff ee Commodity Chain. New York: Rowman & Littlefi eld Publishers.  Pages, isbn --- paper. http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com If you judged the health of the coff ee sector by the price of a latte at your local Starbucks, you might be surprised to learn that at least since  there has been a global crisis in coff ee that exacerbates the poverty of coff ee producers, including many smallholders around the world. John Talbot’s tightly argued and carefully constructed historical sociology of the coff ee commodity chain from  to the present illuminates these processes in stark detail. Grounds for Agreement takes coff ee as a case within which to examine and explain world-historical processes of unequal relations of production and trade. Th e result is an excellent book that argues forcefully for a return to regulated markets on social justice and ecological grounds. Th e analysis builds methodically from discussion of the structure of the global coff ee commodity chain under U.S. hegemony, – (chap. ); to struggles over its governance during the developmentalist period of regulation, – (chap. ) and the neoliberal globalization period of coff ee crises, http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0742526291 Journal of World-Systems Research Book Reviews  –present (chap. ); through struggles over “forward integration” into the more highly capitalized instant coff ee segment of the global chain (chap. ); and reaching its climax in discussion of the distribution of surplus along the chain (chap. ) and the (limited) potential for alternative trade such as organics and fair trade to alter the deep structure of the coff ee chain (chap. ). Th eoretically, Talbot’s project merges a world-systems approach—includ- ing but not limited to the analysis of global commodity chains—and Arrighi’s systemic cycles of accumulation with a food regimes approach. In laying the theoretical, methodological and historical-material grounds for his analysis in the fi rst two chapters, he begins with the world-systems premise that one must analyze the whole world-economy if one is to understand the commodity chain. Th e analysis of the coff ee commodity chain that follows, as he concludes, is much more complex than Gereffi ’s now well-known distinction between producer- driven and buyer-driven chains. Talbot fi nds that diff erent segments of the com- modity chain may have diff erent governance structures. One may wonder why he sees the need to create a “more complete typology” (p. ), but that’s a small quibble. Bringing in the material characteristics of coff ee as the “archetypical tropical commodity,” Grounds for Agreement builds on Friedmann and McMichael’s food regimes work to focus on the fourth agri-food complex of the tropical commodi- ties. In doing so, Talbot introduces the key concept of the “tree crop price cycle,” which he returns to later in the narrative. To summarize succinctly, due to the three to fi ve year lag between planting new coff ee trees and their producing fruit, growers will tend to overplant when the price is high and to take too many trees out of production (or not maintain them) when the price is low. As a result, there are exacerbated cycles in world prices. Because of the tree crop price cycle, Talbot observes a “central role of ecology” in determining the structure of the (tropi- cal) commodity chains. Th us, as Stephen Bunker has argued more generally, the characteristics of the commodity matter tremendously for the political economy of the commodity, regional development in extractive and in this case agricul- tural regions, and global relations of unequal development. Surprisingly, Talbot does not cite Bunker’s work or his work with Ciccantell that moves further than Arrighi’s in the direction of giving analytical weight to raw materials (and, by extension, agricultural commodities like coff ee) in studies of global hegemony. Th e last theoretical tool Talbot deploys is Polanyi’s concept (via Arrighi) of the “double movement.” Th ere have been a series of double movements in the coff ee commodity chain where extensions of the self-regulating market have inevitably created movements for social protection against the ravages of the market. Further combining the material arguments with the Polanyian ones, Talbot argues that when the extension of the free market in coff ee has resulted in coff ee crises due to the tree crop price cycle, there have been countermove- ments of coff ee growers pressuring states to protect them against the uncertain- ties of the market. Declining commodity prices led to the collective actions of coff ee producing states to construct the International Coff ee Agreement (ICA) in the s; the triumph of the U.S.-led neoliberal vision created the ultimate breakdown in and the ensuing coff ee crisis; and now, he argues, we are in a period of another double movement wherein renewed market regulation is pos- sible—and desirable. Power is at issue in much of the book. Chapter  on “Struggles over Regulation of the Chain” details the ways in which producing states leveraged their control over domestic segments of the global coff ee commodity chain into the ICA and even aimed to control world market prices through infl uencing coff ee markets in consuming countries. It is here that the main thesis of the book emerges: that “grounds for agreement” has existed at key historical moments, in  and also, notably, in  several years after the killer frost of  in Brazil. Th at frost led to a large price spike followed by a gradual decline that set the stage for renegotiations over the ICA. As Talbot observes, of the s commodity agree- ments around oil (e.g. OPEC), bananas, rubber, cocoa, bauxite, copper and the like,“Th e coff ee agreement was arguably the strongest and most successful … due to the collective strength of the coff ee producers” (p. ). But the ICA had perpetual problems due to the structural tendency towards overproduction, as well as the interests of the U.S. hegemonic state in fostering a transition to unfettered neoliberal trade. Overproduction occurred because of the tree crop price cycle upswing following the frost; “technifi cation” of coff ee production with new, high-yield varieties (ironically at the initiative of periph- eral producer states and local capitalist classes but to the ultimate benefi t of core capital); the debt crisis and global export promotion; and the very export quota rules of the ICA which encouraged high levels of production to obtain quotas in the next year. In the end, however, Talbot explains how the U.S. government— not European importers who in part viewed the ICA as a form of restitution for colonial exploitation—in alliance with a “dissident” group of smaller, new pro- ducer countries brought down the ICA in . Part of the story is an ideological reorientation that accompanied the organizational change in the making of U.S. agricultural trade policy, moving it from the State Department’s purview to the Offi ce of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) in  when Carter was still President. Th e remainder of the book, in essence, is an analysis of the ascent of the powerful transnational corporations (TNCs) in the coff ee commodity chain, which given the prior capacity for collective state action by peripheral produc- ers was not a given. From a detailed history of mergers and acquisitions, Talbot Journal of World-Systems Research Book Reviews  charts the consolidation of capital in coff ee trading and manufacturing under four major manufacturing TNCs that now control over  percent of global coff ee sales and eight TNCs controlling the majority of trade. Th ese giant trad- ing and fi nancial companies, for whom coff ee is but one commodity among their repertoire of tricks. Indeed, the increased fi nancialization of the world economy led to a shift from hedging to speculation in coff ee futures “independent of supply and demand conditions” (p. ), weakening the link between futures prices and real conditions while increasing the need for market information—something in which the TNCs have an edge. Talbot’s discussion of the complexities of futures markets is clear and insightful. Th e increasing power of the TNCs has meant that in the post-ICA world of the s, there was a massive, real transfer of coff ee stockpiles to consuming country locations at bargain prices with little change in the retail price of a pound or cup of coff ee. And in the producing countries, coff ee marketing boards and monopoly exporting were dismantled from Columbia to Rwanda, leading grow- ers into feeble attempts to pressure their states to re-regulate the market. Taking an implicit cue from Dunaway and Clelland’s review of Gereffi and Wyman’s () Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism in the fi rst issue of this jour- nal,¹ Talbot pays close attention to the extraction and distribution of surplus along the commodity chains. In Chapter , “Where does your coff ee dollar go?,” Talbot convincingly demonstrates, despite all the diffi culties in obtaining reli- able data, that the main benefi ciaries are the TNC roasters who gain the larg- est share and handle the largest volumes. As they gained control of the whole chain and not just the core segments of it, they maintained high retail prices despite crashing green coff ee prices and increased their share of income by  percent. Examining cost of production fi gures he shows that coff ee growing was broadly profi table from the mid-s to late s but has since been in crisis. In /, the average coff ee grower obtained only  cents from tending a tree producing one pound of roasted coff ee beans that sold for four dollars, and that income is gross, before fertilizer, pesticide and other inputs. Leading TNCs like Nestle (for which some data emerges) garner surplus of perhaps  to  percent of retail price. Today, Talbot sees little potential in the variety of specialty coff ee, fair trade and organic trade alternatives being proposed and tested in small niche markets. Specialty coff ees, he explains, emerged in response to quality declines that accompanied the overproduction and coff ee price crises of the past decade or more. Th eir purveyors have been taken over or grown into TNCs, notably Starbucks. Th e fair trade and organics trade, while useful to a small number of farmers, face a number of contradictions. Not least is that these are small and niche. Talbot doubts that they will alter the structure of world trade. Th e problem is that they rely on the “C” futures contract market as a benchmark for the band of price premium that is possible (e.g. C + x cents / pound where C is the Central American Arabica coff ee price). In addition, the price premium to farmers has already created overcapacity leading fair traders to market some of their product at lower prices. Instead, Talbot concludes, “A real resolution of the crisis requires struc- tural change.” (p. ). He argues for the importance of a Polanyian double movement toward re-regulating the market. Peripheral states, he argues, should once again serve as buff ers between the small growers and the immense power of the TNCs. Th ey need to engage in production controls and agree on a fair price range in a commodity with fairly stable world demand. One question that goes begging is why state regulation of the market should be more likely or eff ective in the current (post)neo-liberal moment. Unfortunately, as Talbot demonstrates, the grounds for agreement are weak in the current conjuncture. One possibility is that the “race to the bottom” competition among producers to produce the cheapest coff ee possible, which has resulted in very poor qual- ity coff ee and pushed thousands of people off the land, will reach a crisis that results in social mobilization. But that is diff erent from the multilateral state negotiations that Talbot supports in the creation of a new International Coff ee Agreement. Perhaps this is a weakness of the approach and one cannot expect him to cover everything in this one book. Still, while Talbot incisively details the contours and history of the global commodity chain in coff ee and negotiations across and within the chain, he off ers limited interpretation of the successes and failures of specifi c peripheral actors beyond the Polanyian double move- ment against the structural constraints of the world system based in a con- juncture of geographical distribution of coff ee production and geopolitics of coff ee importing nations. In my view, the lack of qualitative attention to key nation-state cases in the coff ee trade means there is little analysis of the class character of peripheral states. In fact, he takes a surprisingly benevolent view towards the tropical states and their marketing boards and export control agen- cies. Although recognizing weaknesses and corruption in Africa, for example, Talbot sometimes seems to fall into a blurring of the boundaries between large producers and small holders in the Th ird World, implicitly at least confl at- ing producer country success in gaining a greater share of the chain’s surplus ¹. See Wilma A. Dunaway and Donald Clelland, “Review of Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism.” Journal of World Systems Research,  (). Available at http://jwsr.ucr.edu/archive/vol1/v1_r5.php. http://jwsr.ucr.edu/archive/vol1/v1_r5.php Journal of World-Systems Research Book Reviews  with benefi ts for the millions of coff ee growers. He realizes it is more compli- cated than this but maintains that state agencies cushioned growers from price swings. Occasionally, in his shorthand, Talbot simplifi es “producer” and “con- sumer” countries and reifi es “Brazil” or “Colombia” in the process. A further criticism I have is that more could be said about questions of method. Th e book relies on historical sociology and “theoretically driven incor- porated comparisons” (p.). Indeed, Talbot makes excellent and consistent comparisons. Some of the comparisons are among actors: between US and European importing states and fi rms, between diff erent categories of producer states, e.g. those producing Robusta or Arabica and newer entrants (“other milds”) who became crucial to the demise of the ICA in . Other compari- sons are temporal (e.g., between diff erent moments of negotiation over the ICA and between the eff ects on the price cycle of the  Brazilian frost and the less severe – cycle when ICA quotas were in eff ect). Th e research relies predominantly on the tools of historical sociology: pri- mary use of materials from the ICA archives and secondary reading of primary sources, including key coff ee trade journals, as well as periodicals (mostly the New York Times). Th is has been supplemented in some way by interviews with ICA offi cials and NGOs and activists. In the passages based on secondary materials, I sometimes found a lack of suffi cient citations. Lengthy passages, for example on the history of coff ee, the technology of production, and the pro- ducer country cases, deserved more references in my view. And, in the qualita- tive passages, such as when Talbot writes that the “dissident group of producers” acted as a bloc in – because they “felt that they had common interests” (p.), I am curious: How does he know? Th ere are a small number of footnotes to interviews with key ICA and TNC offi cials; but I wish he had included more of the fi eld work in the book, such as that pertaining to the older ‘coff ee men’ who look down on the newer futures traders (p., n. ). Moreover, I wonder if Talbot in his more recent work will return to the questions of hegemonic cycles and transition raised in the opening theoretical chapter. In other words, how might the further decline of U.S. hegemony aff ect the future structure of the coff ee commodity chain? Have Japanese trading companies taken a diff erent relationship to global trade and production than U.S.-based transnationals? Has the Chinese state, or Chinese fi rms for that matter, become involved in coff ee like so many other commodities? Finally, a timeline of key events and tipping points and a chart or two condensing the information on corporate ownership and mergers would have helped the reader to keep track of the complexities. All in all, Grounds for Agreement makes an outstanding contribution to his- torical world-systems analysis in general and the politics of commodity chains in particular. It is superior to many of the books available on globalization since it actually shows the relationship between commodity characteristics, market fi nancialization, and the increased power and wealth of TNCs in the past fi f- teen years. It would be eminently useful in classes on world-systems, globaliza- tion, and development at the graduate and advanced undergraduate level. And it should spur debates about how to organize, democratize, or otherwise alter the deep structures of inequality inherent in global production and trade. Paul K. Gellert Visiting Fellow Institute of Asian Cultures Sophia University Tokyo, Japan pkgellert@yahoo.com Book Reviews