A striving for national self-sufficiency is shaping up to be one of the greatest forces of twenty-first century geopolitics - Exile Economics is a provocative warning about the risks of abandoning globalisation and how isolationism weakens the global economy.

The dangerous race for self-sufficiency has begun. Be warned.

Nations are turning away from each other. Faith in globalisaton has been fatally undermined by the pandemic, the energy crisis, surging trade frictions and swelling great power rivalry. A new vision is vying to replace what we've known for many decades. This vision - Exile Economics - entails a rejection of interdependence, a downgrading of multilateral collaboration and a striving for greater national self-sufficiency. The supporters of this new order argue it will establish genuine security, prosperity and peace. But is this promise achievable? Or a seductive delusion?

Through the stories of globally traded commodities - from silicon to steel and from soybeans to solar panels - economics journalist Ben Chu illustrates the intricate web of interdependence that has come to bind nations together - and underlines the dangers of this new push to isolationism. Exile Economics is an essential guide to this new world in all its promise and peril.

Over the past century, new farming methods, feed additives, and social and economic structures have radically transformed agriculture around the globe, often at the expense of human health. In Chickenizing Farms and Food, Ellen K. Silbergeld reveals the unsafe world of chickenization-big agriculture's top-down, contract-based factory farming system-and its negative consequences for workers, consumers, and the environment. Drawing on her deep knowledge of and experience in environmental engineering and toxicology, Silbergeld examines the complex history of the modern industrial food animal production industry and describes the widespread effects of Arthur Perdue's remarkable agricultural innovations, which were so important that the US Department of Agriculture uses the term chickenization to cover the transformation of all farm animal production. Silbergeld tells the real story of how antibiotics were first introduced into animal feeds in the 1940s, which has led to the emergence of multi-drug-resistant pathogens, such as MRSA. Along the way, she talks with poultry growers, farmers, and slaughterhouse workers on the front lines of exposure, moving from the Chesapeake Bay peninsula that gave birth to the modern livestock and poultry industry to North Carolina, Brazil, and China. Arguing that the agricultural industry is in desperate need of reform, the book searches through the fog of illusion that obscures most of what has happened to agriculture in the twentieth century and untangles the history of how laws, regulations, and policies have stripped government agencies of the power to protect workers and consumers alike from occupational and food-borne hazards. Chickenizing Farms and Food also explores the limits of some popular alternatives to industrial farming, including organic production, nonmeat diets, locavorism, and small-scale agriculture. Silbergeld's provocative but pragmatic call to action is tempered by real challenges: how can we ensure a safe and accessible food system that can feed everyone, including consumers in developing countries with new tastes for western diets, without hurting workers, sickening consumers, and undermining some of our most powerful medicines?

Renewable energy technologies produce many measurable benefits, such as a clear reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. However, it is also apparent that these methods of energy production come with costs. Discussing renewable energy developments within an economic context, this pertinent Handbook provides a comprehensive view of the present and future dimensions of renewable energy use. Divided into six authoritative parts, the Handbook employs economic evaluation to provide an analysis of the benefits and costs of renewable energy, allowing authors to extrapolate potential policy changes. Chapters address the conceptual, methodological and empirical dimensions of renewable energy, providing a broad coverage of key topics while maintaining a clear policy-oriented philosophy. With a structured application of energy economics to renewable energy issues, this enlightening Handbook will be beneficial for environmental and energy policy makers. It will also be an interesting read for academics within such fields as policy regulation, energy economics and environmental economics.