Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective Fifth Edition (Sociology for a New Century) - Softcover

Mcmichael, Philip

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1412992079 ISBN 13: 9781412992077

Publisher: Sage Inc, 2012

Synopsis

Explores development through historical narrative and examines the globalization/development paradox through in-depth case studies.

In his Fifth Edition of Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective, author Philip McMichael examines the project of globalization and its instabilities (climate, energy, food, financial crises) through the lens of development and its origins in the colonial project. The book continues to help students make sense of a complex world in transition and explains how globalization became part of public discourse.

Filled with case studies, this text makes the intricacies of globalization concrete, meaningful, and clear for students and moves them away from simple social evolutionary views, encouraging them to connect social change, development policies, global inequalities and social movements. The book challenges students to see themselves as global citizens whose consumption decisions have real social and ecological implications.

Key Features:

· a world-historical perspective that situates globalization in the declining fortunes of the postwar development project, and considers current global limits and possibilities

· a political perspective that views development and globalization as discursive practices managed by historic elite groupings, as mechanisms of power and world ordering

· an ecological perspective drawing attention to the environmental consequences of development and attempts to reintegrate social life in ecological cycles

· an emphasis on resistance and social movements as actors shaping the meaning and direction of these projects, in addition to building alternatives

· a series of case studies that allow in-depth examination of development/globalization dilemmas and paradoxes to interrupt the idea of a linear process.

New to the Fifth Edition:

· developmental impacts of the rise of the BRICS

· structural adjustment and new inequalities come to the global North

· 'de-growth' philosophies

· the re-centering of agriculture in light of the food, energy and climate crises

· land-grabbing and biofuels

· green technologies and climate proofing

· transition towns and re-localization

· new democratic movements.

About this title

Review:

“I'm highly impressed with the author's breadth of knowledge. And my students love this book.” (Julie Guthman 2011-04-27)

"I like this book a great deal. It is well-organized and the author writes in a style that works well for students that are not sociology majors and perhaps are starting their undergraduate careers." (Syndee Knight 2011-04-27)

About the Author:

Philip McMichael grew up in Adelaide, South Australia, and is an International Professor of Development Sociology at Cornell University. His book Settlers and The Agrarian Question: Foundations of Capitalism in Colonial Australia (Cambridge University Press, ©1984) won the 1995 Social Science History Association's Allan Sharlin Memorial Award. He has also edited The Global Restructuring of Agro-Food Systems (Cornell University Press, ©1994), Food and Agrarian Orders in the World Economy (Praeger, ©1995), New Directions in the Sociology of Global Development (Emerald, ©2005), and Contesting Development: Critical Struggles for Social Change (Routledge, ©2010). He has served as Director of Cornell University's International Political Economy Program, as Chair of the American Sociological Association's Political Economy of the World-System Section, and President of the Research Committee on the Sociology of Agriculture and Food for the International Sociological Association. And he has recently worked with the FAO, IATP and UNRISD, the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty, and the international peasant coalition, La Vía Campesina.

About this edition

• Publisher: Sage Inc
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1412992079
• ISBN 13: 9781412992077
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 5
• Number of pages: 408