Its that time again. What's on your book shelf and what are you reading?

Real life has kept me silent of late, but I've been enjoying the commentary. There has been some talk about Dems selling out and Obama's right-wing policies. This got me thinking about what it means to be a liberal. What is our philosophical rationale for the policies we wish to pursue? What are some of the books that all liberals should read? Any hard core philosophy books?

Here is the second part of my review of Manfred Steger's The Rise of the Global Imaginary (part 1 here). In the last part of the book, Steger focuses on the sometimes conflicting ideologies derived from the global imaginaries.

Starting from the collapse of the USSR, Steger argues (correctly, I think) that the first winning ideology in the decontestation game was market globalism, the ideology that managed to decontest "globalization" in the limited sense of deregulated markets on a global scale.

To explore the tenets of market globalism, Steger reviews the writings of one of its main proponents and popularizers: Thomas Friedman. Needless to say, this is painful to read as is anything related to Thomas Friedman (hence no links), however he is indeed a central figure in the promotion of market globalism. He is also a good representative of the way this ideology was promoted by the political, economic and corporate elites in the 1990s (or the transnational capitalist class as Leslie Sklair calls this group, Friedman belongs to the ideological sub-group of the TCC).

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Coss-posted from The Global Sociology Blog, a proud PB2.0 Blog!

I have already blogged a bit about Manfred Steger's concept of social imaginary but that was before the actual publication of his book on the subject. Now that I have had the time to read the book, let me offer the following review.

Let me say right off the bat that I am a big fan of Manfred Steger's writings on globalization. His Globalization: A Very Short Introduction is still the best introduction to globalization on the market and the one I use for my undergraduate classes. His other book, Globalism: Market Ideology Meets Terrorism is a great exploration of the ideological and cultural implications of globalization.

In his latest book, The Rise of the Global Imaginary: Political Ideologies from The French Revolution to the Global War on Terror, Steger offers another analysis of the ideological dimensions of globalization, but more in-depth than in his previous books.

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I am a big fan of science-fiction in general (good science-fiction is always good sociology), and of Joe Haldeman (that website needs some updating, Joe! Oh well, we can console ourselves with Live Journal) in particular ever since I read The Forever War. I have read all his books since and they keep getting better (The Accidental Time Machine was great but then again, I love the time travel sub-genre). The latest one is Marsbound. It belongs to the first contact genre, humans meet aliens.  Read more…

What's your favorite old book?

What's the most exciting book you've read recently?

Help save the culture, review a book, or read about new ones. Here, tomorrow.

Teaser one: Which commenter here also writes short science fiction?

Teaser two: Two Nobel Prize winners write about where social responsibility ends and personal responsibility begins...

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

Christian Chavagneux and Ronen Palan's Les Paradis Fiscaux is a great (and mercifully short) introduction to tax heavens, banking secrecy and the offshore financial world. And it's in French. For my non-French readers, not to worry, hopefully, my review will give enough substantial information... or, y'all could learn French! However, I have preserved what I think are the best quotes in the original language so as to preserve their value.

The book's central thesis is that the development of offshore financial centers since the 1960s is an integral part of the dynamics of contemporary globalization, both in the financial and productive sectors. Tax heavens are now a pillar without which contemporary economic globalization could not function.

And surprisingly, they have not been studied to the extent that they should have been. For orthodox economic literature, tax heavens are a product of overtaxation in industrialized countries or a simple manifestation of informal economies. Both views are faulty according to Chavagneux and Palan.

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Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

The book I want to start this conversation on social class is Robert Frank's Richistan - A Journey Through The American Wealth Boom and The Lives of the New Rich. It is an ethnographic overview of the lifestyles of the new superrich. What does Richistan mean? According to Frank,

"Today's rich had formed their own virtual country. They were in fact wealthier than most nations. By 2004, the richest 1 percent of Americans were earning about $1.35 trillion a year - greater than the total national incomes of France, Italy or Canada.

And with their huge numbers, they had built a self-contained world unto themselves, complete with thwie own health-care system (concierge doctors), travel networks (Net Jets, destination clubs), separate economy (double-digit income gains and double-digit inflation), and language ("who's your household manager?"). They didn't just hire gardening crews; they hired "personal arborists." The rich weren't just getting richer; they were becoming financial foreigners, creating their own country within a country, their own society within a society, and their economy within an economy.

They were creating Richistan." (3-4)

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Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

I have already discussed sociologist Anthony Elliott's Book, Making the Cut: How Cosmetic Surgery is Transforming our Lives when it was reviewed in a newspaper. I have since read the book in its entirety. Below is my full review.

"In the new economy nothing is more sexy than surgery. From Botox to lipo to tummy tucks and mini-facelifts, the number of cosmetic surgery operations undertaken around the globe has soared recently, as consumers spend more and more on themselves in the search for sex appeal and artificial beauty. In a society in which celebrity is divine, information technology rules, new ways of working predominate and people increasingly judge each other on first impressions, cosmetic enhancements of the body have become all the rage." (7)

In other words, for Elliott, we have entered the era of the cosmetic surgical culture, a subset of the makeover culture that also includes fashion, fitness and all sorts of therapies. His book is dedicated to examining the social causes and consequences of this cultural shift in the global context, both in terms of the social production of identity at the micro-level and at the global level of shift in the structure of work at the macro-level.  Read more…

It's Sunday Morning...time to talk about books.

What book do you love? Which do you hate?

What are you reading?

I have been amazed (in a bad sense) by the story of the raid by the State of Texas on the Fundamentalist Mormon compound in El Dorado and the removal of 460 children. It is indeed incredible that such practices are allowed to persist in the 21st century United States.

When it comes to religious fundamentalist movements and other reactionary and fascist groups, there is no better source on the Internet than the blog Orcinus (David Neiwert's blog, with co-author Sara Robinson). In this cas, Sara Robinson got the thankless task of reporting on this and in this post (which is well worth a read), she recommended Daphne Bramham's book, The Secret Life of Saints - Child Brides and Lost Boys in Canada's Polygamous Mormon Sect. I fully trust Sara's judgment, so, I got the book and, boy, it was quite a read.