GLOBALIZATION. THE HIDDEN AGENDA
Polity Press
www.polity.co.uk
by Dennis Smith
ISBN 0-7456-1702-6 hardbook
ISBN 0-7456-1703-4 paperback

List of chapters
1. Key Themes
2. Codes of Modernity
3. Modes of Humiliation
4. Frames of Globalization
5. The Imperial Impulse
6. The Logic of the Market
7. The Cosmopolitan Condition
8. Escape
9. Acceptance
10. Rejection
11. Decent Democracy or Domineering State?

Key Questions

How is the world shaping us?
How can we shape the world?
Those questions have always driven my work whether I am looking at education, politics, war, industry, business, the battle for power, money, and prestige or, quite simply, the struggle for survival.
Whatever the topic, there are always surrounding circumstances that need to be understood. Looking at this wider context leads us outwards, towards the bigger picture, towards the global.
At the same time, looking at ourselves leads inwards, towards the personal: who we are and what we want and need.
It is important to think

• historically,
• comparatively, and
• globally

and act practically to defend and advance human interests.

How powerful is fear of humiliation as a force in the lives of individuals, nations and states?
China, Japan, India and the rest of the world are rapidly growing richer, stronger and more independent. The West is losing ground.
This is deeply ironic. Since World War II, America has taught the rest of the world to Americanise itself. That means freer markets, professionalization of business, and leaner states. This has made America’s rivals very much stronger – and the United States much weaker by comparison.
The European Union now challenges USA in wealth and population. All the United States has left is its military superiority and the ‘soft power’ of its mass media. These are diminishing assets, bound to be challenged by European and Asian weaponry and mass media over the next decade or two.
The West is deeply divided and does not know what to do. 9/11 gave it a taste of humiliation and its main answer so far has been to strike back, trying to humiliate its enemies. When this fails, the most likely response is an equally disastrous withdrawal into a Fortress America, leaving the European Union with the ‘Rest’ on the outside.

Dennis Smith has analysed this in Globalization. The Hidden Agenda (Polity Press). He shows how globalization (economic, politico-military and cultural) has brought more humiliation than liberation.

Humiliation means being displaced, degraded, belittled and excluded. Its impact is deeply personal. Globalization. The Hidden Agenda traces the strong links that exist between the personal and the global. It sets out the choices that now face us if we wish to survive the future with dignity.

Dennis Smith
Contact: d.smith @ lboro.ac.uk
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