|
Showing 1 - 11 of
11 matches in All Departments
|
2030 (Hardcover)
Pepe Escobar
|
R843
R575
Discovery Miles 5 750
Save R268 (32%)
|
Ships in 12 - 17 working days
|
This essay is a companion to my own Globalistan, published in early
2007, which I defined as a warped geopolitical travel book. I
argued then that in a context of re-medievalization - the world
fragmented into "stans" - we are now living an intestinal war, an
undeclared global civil war. Borrowing from Zygmunt Bauman's
concept of liquid modernity, I called it Liquid War - and not only
because of the global scramble for "black gold" oil and "blue gold"
gas.
Globalistan was essentially a long reportage crisscrossing the
world. This text reflects the fact that I spent most of 2008 in the
U.S. following the presidential campaign. As far as New Rome is
concerned I'm usually outside looking in - the point of view of my
dying profession, the foreign correspondent. In this text I'm most
of the time inside looking out. Globalistan can be read as an on
the ground - and underground - report on the Bush administration
wasteland. This text could be something of a last chapter - out of
the belly of the beast.
2009 is the Mother of all celebratory years. The 20 years of the
fall of the Berlin Wall. The 30 years of the Iranian Islamic
revolution. The 50 years of the Cuban revolution. The 60 years of
NATO. The 70 years of World War II. The 80 years of the Great
Depression. The 90 years of the Versailles Treaty. It's as if the
world was turning on its gyre as in a psychedelic kaleidoscope
reviving modern history in high-speed. And which figure comes out
of the kaleidoscope, grinning his cool, calm and collected best to
deal with a 1929-style crisis, the new Cold War or perhaps to
conduct Versailles-style diplomacy? Barack Hussein Obama.
Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar, author of Globalistan: How
the Globalized World Is Dissolving Into Liquid War (Nimble Books,
2007), delivers an unforgettable snapshot of the people of Baghdad
during the "surge." Outstanding first-hand reporting mixed with
global insight; a must-read for anyone seeking to understand what's
happening on the ground in Baghdad.
Globalistan weaves three parallel and intersecting themes:
globalization, energy wars and the Long War. It shows how
globalization is not proceeding according to the myth of "everyone
profits": instead, it is fragmenting the world into even more
explosive inequality, into "stans" - some stans configured as
fortresses, some stans at war with others. Energy wars, and the
multiple intersections of globalization and war, only increase the
polarization. Globalistan argues that the world is being dissolved
into Liquid War - a natural consequence of "liquid modernity," a
concept formulated by Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. The book
is 80% based on reportage - from China to Central Asia and Russia;
before, during and after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; in Iran
and in the Middle East; in Western Europe, Western Africa and South
America. It is also an Atlas - with maps - of the world in
conflict.
|
|