“EMERGING TRENDS IN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS”

“GLOBALIZATION OF MEDIA” >>

Globalization of Media MCM404

Lesson 38

"EMERGING TRENDS IN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS"

Text of handout for students

Note: The text of this handout provides students with the opportunity to read a part of a remarkable book

which is a most thoughtful and pertinent exploration of the real factors and forces that are shaping

international affairs in the 21st century.

The excerpt titled: "Surplus imperialism, war without end" is chapter 7 from the book titled: "Empire of

Capital" by Ellen Meiksins Wood, published by Verso, London & New York, 2003/2005.

Reference to the comments and brief description of the book in its paperback version indicates the quality of

analysis contained in this unusual study:

"Capitalism makes possible a new form of domination by purely economic means, argues Ellen Meiksins

Wood. So, surely, even the most seasoned White House hawk would prefer to exercise global hegemony in

this way, without costly colonial entanglements. Yet, as Wood powerfully demonstrates, the economic

empire of capital has also created a new and unlimited militarism.

By contrasting the new imperialism to historical forms such as the Roman and Spanish empires, and by

tracing the development of capitalist imperialism back to the English domination of Ireland and on the

British Empire in America and India, Wood shows how today's capitalist empire, a global economy

administered by many local states, has come to spawn a new military doctrine of war without end, in purpose

or time.

"A splendid book" - Eric Hobsbawm, eminent historian. `A thought-provoking genealogy of empires

throughout history' Publishers' Weekly.

Ellen Meiksins Wood is the author of several books, including Democracy against Capitalism and, with

Verso, The Retreat from Class (which won the Deutscher Prize), Peasant-Citizen and Slave, The Pristine

Culture of Capitalism and The Origin of Capitalism.

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