Antonina Ivanova Boncheva

Book reviewGlobalization on Trial: The Human Condition and the Information Civilization: Farhang Rajaee; Ottawa, Canada: IDRC/Kumarian Press, 2000, 150 pages

Professor Farhang Rajaee, PhD in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia and visiting Associate Professor in the College of the Humanities at Carleton University, with experience in Europe and Iran, provides us in this book with a critical overview of the primary interpretations of the complex phenomena labeled globalization, as well as a vision of the future. To the author, dialogue and understanding are building blocks for the betterment of humanity. Chapter 1, “The New Creation,” examines globalization and its dynamics, putting these into historical perspective. The author follows a dual process, capturing the nature of the transformation of the world’s condition and setting off a boundary for this new creation to identify its consequences. He attempts to combine description and prescription in a time of deep transformation and theoretical deconstruction and reconstruction. The method of research in this essay is multidisciplinary, and includes the “holistic approach” and the “civilizational approach.” Rajaee defines his theoretical approach as “complex integrative” (integrating three forms of rationality: postmodernism, utilitarian rationalism, and fundamentalism), and his practical method is “consiliance” (first introduced by Osborne Wilson, the “father” of sociobiology) which consists of the harmonization of data and analyses from different lines of inquiry. In the second chapter, “A Theory of Globalization,” Professor Rajaee examines the competition among paradigms to explain the phenomenon of globalization and the future shape of our globalized world, in order to embark on an explanation of his complex alternative theory. First, he presents the political approach, expressed mainly in the theories of Kaplan and Huntington, as a claim that the state system had lost most of its authority, and that culture and civilization have become the proper focus for political loyalty. The author expresses the opinion that the political paradigm explains only one aspect of humanity’s existence, that of competition, whereas there is more to life than competition and struggle. Second, readers are introduced to the economic approach, where the most prevalent view of globalization is that of the economists who see it in terms of increased economic interdependence and the integration of all national economies into one economy within the framework of a capitalist market. In the emerging global market the power of computer communications technologies has changed the nature of finance and trade, thus putting an end to geography, creating a borderless world, and signaling the twilight of national sovereignty. In the author’s opinion the Asian crisis showed the risks inherent in one immature market, without the supporting social infrastructure. Third, the cultural approach indicates that the realities of globalization have so affected our philosophical and cultural understanding that the old paradigms no longer explain what