Globalization is at the heart of debates about the present phase of development of the world economy. In Globalization and the Postcolonial World, Ankie Hoogvelt joins these debates to examine the ways in which globalization is affecting the countries of the developing world.

Taking a new look at historical trends and theories in development studies, Hoogvelt places special emphasis on emerging global forms of production, exchange, and governance. She describes the diverse impacts of globalization in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, East Asia, and Latin America, identifying different postcolonial responses in each of these regions.

Hoogvelt concludes that today the social logic of globalization drives the economics of globalization--in contrast to the past, in which economic forces stimulated the integration of human societies across international borders. Globalization, she concludes, has created a new architecture of core-periphery relations in the world economy, in which social divisions replace geographic divisions and in which the politics of exclusion replace the politics of incorporation characteristic of previous phases of capitalist expansion.