Review

Reviewed Work(s): The Three Waves of Globalization: A History of a Developing Global

Consciousness by Robbie Robertson
Review by: M. June Flanders
Source: The International History Review, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Jun., 2004), pp. 461-463
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40109529
Accessed: 04-11-2016 12:53 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

Taylor & Francis, Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The
International History Review

This content downloaded from 164.15.117.159 on Fri, 04 Nov 2016 12:53:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Reviews of Books 461

will fall on deaf ears. Americans like trying to run the world bu
to pay much to do it, and they like deferring to others ev
changes, US foreign policy is likely to remain both ambitious a
far-reaching and fickle.

Harvard University Stephen M. Walt

Robbie Robertson. The Three Waves of Globalization:

Global Consciousness. London: Zed Books, 2003; dist.
millan. Pp. 291. $25.00 (us), paper.

Globalization has become an all-purpose word. Ro

define it but his sense of what the word means can best b
last pages: 'It is about human interconnections that hav
tions and transformed themselves' (p. 2); 'it is part and pa
quest for security and well-being, a quest that has seen
tural techniques for the same purpose, raid and conq
treacherous trading ventures [the first wave], carve ou
second wave], and devise get-rich-quick strategies to
values [the third, current wave]' (p. 265). This last sent
izes what he intends the book to be.
First, there is a history of the universe for the last n tr
years of the development of life and of humans; this coul
Stephen Jay Gould and Jared Diamond. With the grow
ture, the surplus this permitted, and the subsequent ur
of manufacture, we get trade between countries (and tr
and the beginnings of interconnectedness. In this per
Empire and Chinese hegemony in much of Asia. The
that began about 1500 triggered a new era, the first w
war, invasion, and conquest. But then Europe became
pean wars. These ended - or paused - in Europe with t
1648 and the beginnings of relative peace, permitting B
century, to launch the Industrial Revolution, though J
England in fact started to industrialize, in the sense of
goods in large-scale enterprises, as early as 1540 (Jour
xliv [1936]).
Wave two, then, is the growth (led by Britain) of industrialization and its spread
through trade, empire-building, exploitation, and slavery. This continued until
the early twentieth century, collapsing into the First World War.
Wave three started after the end of the Second World War. Here the dominant

power has been the United States, acting, according to Robinson, mostly out of

xxvi. 2: June 2004

This content downloaded from 164.15.117.159 on Fri, 04 Nov 2016 12:53:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
462 The International History Review

selfish and aggressive motives to dominate and perhaps exploit the rest of the
world even more than Britain did in the previous phase.
Robinson's method is difficult to describe. It is neither detailed history based
on primary sources, nor a systematic review of the professional literature. It is
rather an amalgam of summaries and quotations from various sources - scholarly
books, newspaper articles, radio talks, and the like - usually presented without
argument. The book often reads like a collection of notes and often makes state-
ments that are, at best, debatable. Thus the selfish United States is said to have
promulgated the Marshall Plan as a way of getting rid of a surplus and stimulating
the domestic economy; but when the Marshall Plan was proposed and passed, in
1948, the threat to the US economy was inflation caused by monetization of the
wartime domestic debt and the pent-up demand for consumption and investment
goods after five years of a virtual freeze on production of durable goods, and sharp
curtailment of output of non-durables. Similarly, the United States is supposed to
have become imperialistic to protect its large but declining share of world manu-
factures, but exports of goods (mostly agricultural, not manufacturing) and
services combined were 5 per cent of GDP in i960, 1965, and 1970. Exports of
financial services pushed this up to about 10 per cent by 1995. Elsewhere, we are
told that (South) American bullion made the industrial revolution (in Britain) pos-
sible; but there is no discussion of why this did not occur in Spain, the initial
recipient of the gold and silver raided from the Americas. True, the bullion ended
up in northern Europe and Britain, but we are not told how and why. There is a
large and distinguished literature on this subject (by J. M. Keynes and Earl Hamil-
ton, among others).
A brief word about the World Bank-IMF bashing that pervades the last chap-
ters. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) does not dictate behaviour to any
country unless it comes to it for loans. Indignation that Argentina must pay back
its loans while the United States is not required to is irrelevant. Argentina's debts
are in dollars; so are the United States's. When the rest of the world decides that it
does not want to hold US deposits, bonds, and other assets (which is, of course, a
possibility), then the United States will indeed be forced to pay back its debts.
The IMF is required to make loans that are potentially repayable: it lends the
countries' funds, short-term loans to tide a country over balance-of-payments
crisis, not to finance long-term development. (It has, by the way, set up emergency
funds to help, quickly, countries hurt by large-scale, worldwide shifts in com-
modity prices, such as the recent collapse of coffee prices or the explosion of oil
prices in the 1970s.) Loans for development were intended to be the province of
the World Bank; and it indeed has made many undramatic investments in infra-
structure, education, transport, and health in developing countries, which we
usually do not hear about. Neither institution is above criticism, but wholesale
condemnation is best left to the newspapers.
Finally, a word about the colonial powers and their evil influences. I am con-

xxvi. 2: June 2004

This content downloaded from 164.15.117.159 on Fri, 04 Nov 2016 12:53:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Reviews of Books 463

vinced that the single greatest harm the colonial powers inflicte
was to set up political units with no reference to tribal, cultural
ical cohesion, rule them autocratically, and then simply walk
out), leaving behind much of the chaos we see today. This sub
in the book. And what is to come? There is hope for a better
son: more co-operation, more democratization, more equity, a
Democratization seems to be the keyword here. The basis f
spelled out. Meanwhile, the book, with a fact or a factoid on
good read and offers plenty of food for thought.

Tel Aviv University M.June Flanders

Zeev Maoz and Ben D. Mor. Bound by Struggle: The Strat

during International Rivalries. Ann Arbor: University of
Pp. x, 356. $54.50 (us).

This is the latest book in a research programme undertaken

ical scientists and historians designed to analyse interstate riv
'Rivalry' is hardly an unfamiliar term in the annals of inte
most observers have pretty much taken the concept for g
shorthand term for two states engaged in some form of p
The shorthand term is not inappropriate. The question is w
concept further and develop a more general understanding
cesses work. Why do they begin? What causes them to esca
minate? Why is it that a very small proportion of interstate
a large proportion of the world's interstate conflict? (For i
the wars between 1816 and today can be traced to the escal
state rivalries).
Zeev Maoz and Ben D. Mor's approach is complicated an
they take pride in the complications. They argue that the
deductive theorizing, case studies of Egyptian-Israeli and S
large-N quantitative analysis, and game theoretical examinat
found in the book. Not all of it can be reviewed here.
For the consumption of historians, perhaps it is best to
argument. Maoz and Mor contend that governmental decis
eign policy on the basis of, first, their own satisfaction with
their best guess as to whether they have the capability to
status quo, and third, their expectations about an adversar
iour which, in turn, is predicated on perceptions of the
satisfaction and its capability to do something about it. Ea
the adversaries has some potential for changing beliefs abou
a consequence, subsequent behaviours. One or both sides

xxvi. 2: June 2004

This content downloaded from 164.15.117.159 on Fri, 04 Nov 2016 12:53:37 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms