Review by Choice Review
In this superb and timely book on the subject of the globalization process, Peet presents some of the hotly debated issues in economic development. The author makes no pretention to cover the full range of problems in the world economy but specifically addresses the question of capitalist development beyond the boundaries of the nation-state within a historical and methodological framework. He begins with the critique of social Darwinism and environmental determinism and their 19th-century implication for European imperialism. He sees that modernization theory (via the structural functionalism in sociology and/or neoclassical economics) tries desperately to justify the postwar institutions of US global hegemony. But Peet is quick to point out that, despite the practice of international agencies today, the events of the 1960s and early 1970s have already deranged this political and ideological order. Finally, Peet offers a critique of structural Marxism, dependency and world-system theory, and the French regulation school by relying on Brenner's thesis on the origins of capitalist development. Accordingly, he argues that the transition from feudalism to global capitalism has been accomplished through a period of commercial capitalism, stressing the articulation of internal and external developments. Upper-division and graduate collections. -C. Bina, Harvard University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
