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Title: The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. by Saskia Sassen ISBN: 0-691-07063-6 Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.75 (4 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A solid reference work
Comment: Sassen aims to - unpack the concept of "the city" (p. xviii) - as a unit of analysis in sociology and economics from a global perspective. The scope of this endeavor is quite staggering and she has to bring an number of different fields under the same conceptual umbrella in order to capture the elusive character of 'the city'. Her method is the painstaking analysis of a huge amount of data from a vast array of sources. This might seem unnecessary to some people who are more interested in bold visions of the future á la Manuel Castells or Antonio Negri. The thing about Castells or Negri though is that you need a leap of faith to interpret the world according to their views. Sassen is more boring to read but one can always rely on her providing the data leading up to her conclusions. This is crucial to anyone wanting to take a stab at the interdisciplinary phenomenon of the global city and use availible data for comparison. The thorough research foundation of the book makes it easy to link the issues to areas that otherwise would be quite far apart such as urban planning and service management. Personally I think the most important message is that place and location matters maybe even more nowadays than it used to when production and consumption was explicitly bound by the physical limitations of our world.
In all I think that this book is a must read for anyone even remotely interested i urban matters. It's a bit tough to get through though and the visual presentation of the data could have been better, hence rendering the book a four rather than a five star grade.
Rating: 5
Summary: A must read in the globalization debate
Comment: In writing this review, I had to begin with one critical question: why on earth would I review a book already in print for almost four years? What better time than now, when anti-war advocates are seen in many eyes as un-American, to write about a book in which the author discusses the dangers of nationalism and xenophobia in the context of an ever-globalizing economy? In ten essays the doctor of sociology attempts to "expand the analytic terrain within which we need to understand the global economy in order to render visible what is now evicted" from our current picture of the global economy. She writes in such mouthfuls often, yet her textbook style of writing is a welcome break from the sensationalist and anecdotal approach most often utilized in accounts from the anti-globalization perspective.
If, in the last ten years, you have followed the globalization debate even just a little, then nothing I write here can spoil the book's ending for you. The ending is inconsequential, however, for it is this native Dutch woman's approach to the globalization topic that matters most. The book is not a story, and thus does not follow a traditional plot line, but it never tries to disguise itself as anything other than a categorical critique of international policy. Nor is the book a moral plea to human rights, an approach that seems an easy trap into which fall most writers with parallel paradigms to Sassen's. She takes an obvious stand against globalization of the economy, but instead of simply stating that globalization is bad, Sassen pulls the reader through 218 pages of hard earned facts and qualified theories about the dangers of globalization. Rather than dwell in idealisms, the University of Chicago professor acknowledges the simple observation that globalization is occurring, and rather than asking for an uncompromising end to globalization, she takes a card from the neoliberals' hand and offers concrete solutions to the globalization problem. While that seems like a rather unexciting prospect in itself, one has to remember that many opponents of globalization get sucked into the blame game mindset and offer few (if any) plausible-- or well backed-up-solutions (see the Global Exchange website if you do not believe me).
The remarkable quality of the book is its language. It is written under the assumptions of a human-rights advocate but with the deliberate, yet convincing style of an economist. Its academic quality will turn off a lot of people, but this book was never intended to be bedtime reading material. The normal arguments of the two sides of the issue often give the appearance of two runners in completely different races. Sassen, however, meets her opponents head on, and by using their lexicon and dry grammatical structures, she writes one of the most important books about globalization to this day. Indeed, if there is one real weak point to the book, it is her penchance for writing too dully for even academic writing. She falls occasionally into the trap of spending too much time telling the reader what she is going to say before she actually says it- but only occasionally, and her writing style is disciplined for the most part.
Globalization is inherently a complex issue. Sassen does the reader a great service by avoiding getting stuck on minor or irrelevant points about the issue. Perhaps she pulled a page from Wordsworth, for her attack on globalization is well organized to the point at which she seems to have recalled "in tranquility" the issues rather than descending into scare-mongering tactics. She gives the argument for which the globalization proponents have been asking, and she completely avoids forays into minor points that matter only to those whose heart strings it tugs.
As boring as the subject could be for anyone not passionate about globalization, Sassen grounds well the work by looking at globalization in several contexts. Though she seems at times to be dwelling on topics minor in comparison to the greater umbrella issue, she manages to examine all the major issues of globalization. After first explaining her paradigm in the introduction, Sassen looks at globalization through the window of immigration in the first three chapters. The chapters begin and end with statements about immigration, but the arguments within the envelope structure are based around the general issue of globalization. Splitting up the issue under the subheadings of immigration, feminism, and what she calls "space" helps to deliver her arguments in bite-sized portions without making her seem as if she is avoiding any issue. Indeed, she covers every main argument made by opponents of globalization, and she editorializes it further with her recommendations on immigration policy and her focus on feminism. At the risk of repeating myself, however, she brings up all her points carefully and avoids dropping her extensive knowledge on the reader like lead weights. One would hope that she would write in such an organized fashion, but in the globalization arguments, such structure is rare, unfortunately.
As to the original question: why review such an old book, the answer is becoming readily apparent. Though Sassen has written several books on globalization, including The Global City, a book written in 1991 but updated in 2001, this book encompasses all the major issues of globalization in one fell swoop, and it serves as an authoritative text on those issues. There may be more contemporary versions of Sassens arguments, but none serve as better tools in the argument against globalization, one of the most important fulcrum issues in the post September 11th world. As we continue to wage war against nations our president deems as "terrorist," the issue of globalization continues to be, perhaps, the most important dialogue for our nation. Whether we care to admit it or not, terrorism does not appear from thin air, and we must now ask the question of ourselves: what could America have possibly done to anger people enough to kill themselves in an attack on our nation? Sassen takes an honest look at how American and international policy is affecting marginalized countries and our own, and we would all do well to pay attention to what she is saying.
Rating: 1
Summary: The Global City -Saskia Sassen
Comment: If you can understand this book you are obviously incapable of living in the real world. Sassen's dense, turgid writing style simply aims to bewilder the reader into unquestioningly accepting her doomsday view of socitey. Most depressing reading.
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Title: Global Networks, Linked Cities by Saskia Sassen ISBN: 0415931630 Publisher: Brunner-Routledge Pub. Date: 01 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $28.95 |
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Title: Globalization and Its Discontents: Essays on the New Mobility of People and Money by Saskia Sassen ISBN: 1565845188 Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Global City-Regions: Trends, Theory, Policy by Allen J. Scott ISBN: 0199252300 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Cities in a World Economy by Saskia Sassen ISBN: 0761986669 Publisher: Pine Forge Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $32.95 |
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Title: Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions by Edward W. Soja ISBN: 1577180011 Publisher: Blackwell Publishers Pub. Date: 01 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $30.95 |
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