Over the past decade, a virtual cottage industry has arisen to produce books and articles describing the nature, origins, and impact of globalization. Largely and surprisingly absent from this literature, however, has been extensive discussion of how globalization is affecting the United States itself. Indeed, it is rarely even acknowledged that while the United States may be providing a crucial impetus to globalization, the process of globalization -- once set in motion -- has become a force unto itself. Thus globalization has its own logic and demands that are having a profound impact within the United States, often in ways that are unanticipated.

This set offers the first in-depth, systematic effort at assessing the United States not as a globalizing force but as a nation being transformed by globalization. Among the topics studied are globalization in the form of intensified international linkages; globalization as a universalizing and/or Westernizing force; globalization in the form of liberalized flows of trade, capital, and labor; and globalization as a force for the creation of transnational and superterritorial entities and allegiances. These volumes examine how each of these facets of globalization affects American government, law, business, economy, society, and culture.

-- Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University

In providing aid to the ailing economies of the former USSR and Eastern Europe, many Western governments fear that they may be leaving themselves vulnerable to fierce economic competition in the future. This study examines claims that vulnerability existed in Western economic relations with the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe from 1970 to 1990, and shows how the historical evidence undercuts the vulnerability assumptions that fueled the Reagan administration's foreign policy and were never systematically tested.

Recent efforts by the United States and its allies to promote democracy, security, and stability in the Middle East owe much to the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) - also known as the Barcelona Process - an important region-building plan in the Mediterranean region since 1995. The Convergence of Civilizations represents the output of an innovative and much needed collaborative project focused on the EMP. Editors Emanuel Adler, Beverly Crawford, Federica Bicchi, and Rafaella A. Del Sarto have set out to show that regional security and stability may be achieved through a cultural approach based on the concept of regional identity construction, and aim to take stock of the EMP in relation to this goal. The contributors to this collection focus on the obstacles Mediterranean region construction faces due to post 9/11 regional and global events, the difficulties of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, tensions between the EU and the US over Iraq, and the expected consequences of EU enlargement. They also seek to bring the EMP and region-making practices to the attention of American scholars in order to promote a more fertile academic exchange. Ultimately, the contributors demonstrate that the EMP and related region-making practices, while failing so far to promote the development of a Mediterranean regional identity and to achieve regional stability, suggest nonetheless a viable model for regional partnership and cooperation, and thus, for preventing a 'clash of civilizations' in the long haul. The Convergence of Civilizations will be an important tool for meeting the current global challenges being faced by nation-states as well as those in the future.

In providing aid to the ailing economies of the former USSR and Eastern Europe, many Western governments fear that they may be leaving themselves vulnerable to fierce economic competition in the future. This study examines claims that vulnerability existed in Western economic relations with the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe from 1970 to 1990, and shows how the historical evidence undercuts the vulnerability assumptions that fueled the Reagan administration's foreign policy and were never systematically tested.

The authors put forward their own concept for the interpretation of international relations, describing how progress occurs not necessarily out of moral development, but by the desire of nation-states to redefine their national interests in terms of security, welfare and human rights.

As Germany celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany--the former West Germany-- leading scholars take stock in this volume of the political, social, and economic progress Germany made as it built a democratic political system and a powerful economy, survived the Cold War, and dealt with the challenges of reunification.
The contributors address issues such as Germany's response to extremists, the development of a professional civil service, judicial review, the maintenance of the welfare state, the nature of contemporary German nationalism, and Germany's role in the world.
Contributors are Thomas Banchoff, Thomas U. Berger, Patricia Davis, Ernst Haas, Jost Halfmann, Christard Hoffmann, Carl-Lugwig Holtfrerich, Donald P. Kommers, Wolfgang Krieger, Peter Krueger, Gregg O. Kvistad, Ludger Lindlar, Charles Maier, Andrei Markovitz, Peter Merkl, Claus Offe, Simon Reich, and Michaela Richter.
John S. Brady and Sarah Elise Wiliarty are doctoral candidates in the Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley. Beverly Crawford is Professor of Political Science, Senior Lecturer in Political Economy of Industrial Societies, and Associate Director, Center for German and European Studies, University of California, Berkeley.