This book examines the concrete manifestations of the globalizing forces operating in the world today. It unpicks the rhetoric of globalization in political analysis, cultural theory and urban and economic sociology.

1 INTRODUCTION — GLOBALIZATION: SOCIAL PROCESS OR POLITICAL RHETORIC? Part I Contesting global forces 2 THE FUTURES OF BERLIN’S POTSDAMER PLATZ 3 THE GLOBAL COMMON: THE GLOBAL, LOCAL AND PERSONAL; DYNAMICS OF THE WOMEN’S PEACE MOVEMENT IN THE 1980s Part II Homogenized culture or enduring diversity? 4 ‘ACROSS THE UNIVERSE’: THE LIMITS OF GLOBAL POPULAR CULTURE 5 AN ASIAN ORIENTALISM? LIBAS AND THE TEXTURES OF POSTCOLONIALISM 6 ELVIS IN ZANZIBAR 7 CHINESE ENTREPRENEURSHIP: CULTURE AND ECONOMIC ACTORS Part III The national, the international and the global 8 GLOBALIZATION, URBAN CHANGE AND URBAN POLICIES IN BRITAIN AND FRANCE 9 AIR TRANSPORT AND GLOBALIZATION: A SCEPTICAL VIEW 10 GLOBALIZATION, THE COMPANY AND THE WORKPLACE: SOME INTERIM EVIDENCE FROM THE AUTO INDUSTRY IN BRITAIN 11 NATIONALISM AND THE FALL OF THE USSR Part IV Theoretical reflections: social theory, cultural subjectivism and disembedded markets 12 GLOBALIZATION AS AN EMERGENT CONCEPT 13 WIDER HORIZONS WITH LARGER DETAILS: SUBJECTIVITY, ETHNICITY AND GLOBALIZATION 14 THE WORLD MARKET UNBOUND