Globalization
Globalization—a growing interdependence of the world's economies and populations—affects every aspect of life as we know it, including what we eat, how we work, and how we identify ourselves. The books in this collection explore globalization through various lenses, investigating the economic, social, and ecological impact of the direction the world is headed.
21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2018) is historian, philosopher, and acclaimed author Yuval Noah Harari’s in-depth look at the current global affairs and the immediate future of humankind. To Harari, the merging of biotechnology and artificial intelligence potentially represents the end of history with some humans becoming godlike. Despite the ramification of this situation on all of humanity, most people are distracted by irrelevant information and do not realize the debate that is occurring... Read 21 Lessons for the 21st Century Summary
A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage traces the emergence of six different beverages—beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and Coca-Cola—and the roles they played in human history and culture. In doing so, Standage offers a sweeping overview of human history, ranging from the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia to contemporary America that emphasizes the continuities in our approach to drinks and drinking, as well as the changes and discoveries they are associated... Read A History of the World in 6 Glasses Summary
SuperSummary, a modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics. This one-page guide includes a plot summary and brief analysis of A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things by Raj Patel.In their political polemic A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things (2017), leftwing writers Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore argue that in its... Read A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things Summary
An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 nonfiction book released in conjunction with the documentary film of the same name. This book, by former vice-president Al Gore, presents scientific information about global climate change. He intersperses this information with personal anecdotes that outline the more human and social dimensions of the issue.An Inconvenient Truth begins with an introduction to the basic science of global warming and the greenhouse gases that cause it. The first forty pages... Read An Inconvenient Truth Summary
“A Supermarket in California” is a prose poem by the American poet Allen Ginsberg. Written in 1955, it appears alongside Ginsberg’s most well-known work, “Howl,” in his book Howl and Other Poems. Published November 1, 1956 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Books as part of their Pocket Poets Series, Howl and Other Poems was subject to an obscenity trial in 1957 due to its use of sexually explicit language. The trial eventually ruled in the... Read A Supermarket in California Summary
A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order is a nonfiction book by Richard Haass, published in 2017, that deals with foreign relations from an American perspective. Haass is a longtime diplomat who served several administrations from the 1980s to the 2000s. He was a special assistant to President George H. W. Bush, and as an official in the State Department, he was a close advisor to Colin Powell... Read A World In Disarray Summary
First published in 1962, Capitalism and Freedom is a nonfiction book about economics, politics, and government. Author Milton Friedman advocates a classical-liberal approach to economic policy in the United States, one that promotes individual freedom by allowing the free market to function as effectively as possible.Friedman wrote Capitalism and Freedom while he was an economics scholar at the University of Chicago. He opens the book with a quote by President John F. Kennedy: “Ask not... Read Capitalism And Freedom Summary
Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (2006) is a philosophical text written by Kwame Anthony Appiah. Appiah, a philosopher and ethicist who teaches at New York University, grew up in Kumasi, Ghana, where his father was a Ghanaian political leader and his mother a British expatriate. His family’s multicultural background, as well as the experience of growing up in diverse Kumasi and then attending school in the United Kingdom, informed Appiah’s thinking about communicating... Read Cosmopolitanism Summary
Crossing the Wire tells the story of Victor Flores, a Mexican teenager who leaves his village of Los Árboles to illegally cross the border into the United States. Victor’s father died while working in the U.S. four years earlier, leaving Victor “the man of the family” (14). His family has been living off of the money Victor makes farming corn, but free trade agreements with the U.S. have made Mexican corn worthless. The only option... Read Crossing the Wire Summary
Exit West is a work of political fiction by Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid, who also wrote The Reluctant Fundamentalist and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. It was published in 2017 and was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize.Exit West begins in an unnamed Middle Eastern city that is on the verge of war. It is already “swollen with refugees” (1). This is where Nadia and Saeed, the two main characters in... Read Exit West Summary
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World—And Why Things Are Better Than You Think, written by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, and Anna Rosling Rönnlund, was published by Flatiron Books in 2018. This book examines how people across cultures view the world through a negative lens, which leads them to believe conditions everywhere are declining. Doctor and global health expert Hans Rosling offers research and anecdotes from his medical experience and his lectures to unpack... Read Factfulness Summary
Barbara Kingsolver’s 2012 novel Flight Behavior presents a compelling symbolic connection between Dellarobia Turnbow, an unhappy farm wife who secretly dreams of running away from it all, and a surprising migration of monarch butterflies that alight upon her in-law’s property in Feathertown, Tennessee. As the butterflies struggle to survive and reproduce to continue their species, Dellarobia struggles in her efforts to deal with the consequences of her past decisions and the possibility of her new... Read Flight Behavior Summary
In Newbery medalist Louis Sachar’s sci-fi thriller Fuzzy Mud (2015), Tamaya and Marshall cut through the restricted woods behind their school to avoid a bully—but encounter a strange mud that has the potential to destroy nearly all life on Earth. While Marshall struggles with the emotional effects of being bullied, Tamaya develops an unusually aggressive rash from the mud and worries that in protecting Marshall she has gravely injured Chad. Each character faces difficult ethical... Read Fuzzy Mud Summary
Globalization and Its Discontents (2002) is American economist John E. Stiglitz’s second major work, published shortly after he became a Nobel laureate. It explores and critiques the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) policies between the 1970s and the early 2000s. Since Stiglitz was a senior vice president of the World Bank between 1993 and 1997, he uses insider knowledge to explain certain structural and functional aspects of the IMF that remain opaque to the public. His... Read Globalization and Its Discontents Summary
James Michener’s sweeping, multi-generational saga Hawaii was published in 1959. Drawing on his experiences serving in the Pacific Theater in WWII and on his life on the islands afterwards, Michener created a sprawling epic that traced the history of Hawaii and its peoples from the creation of the volcanic islands through the 1950s. Michener’s novel combines well-researched and historically accurate framework with fictional or fictionalized characters and tells stories about the way new waves of... Read Hawaii Summary
How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe is a popular history by Irish American author Thomas Cahill, published in 1995. The book argues that Ireland’s conversion to Christianity was instrumental in preserving the remnants of classical culture that survived in Western Europe after the Roman Empire’s demise. The book was on The New York Times Best Seller list for... Read How the Irish Saved Civilization Summary
Inferno by Dan Brown is the fourth installment in Brown’s Robert Langdon series of mystery/thriller novels, following (in order) Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and The Lost Symbol, and preceding Origin. Each edition covers a self-contained story, so readers need not follow the series in order, and often includes themes centered on European and Christian history and cultural traditions. The title character, Robert Langdon, is the only recurring character. Inferno won the Goodreads... Read Inferno Summary
The essay “In Praise of Shadows” was originally published in 1933 in Japan and was written by the Japanese author Jun’ichirō Tanizaki (1886-1965). His work spanned a wide array of subjects, including the cultural impact of World War II, sexuality, and family relationships. He was especially interested in exploring the cultural differences between Japan and the West. Tanizaki was awarded Japan’s Imperial Prize in Literature in 1949 and wrote novels, short stories, essays, plays, and... Read In Praise of Shadows Summary
Little Bee, a 2010 novel by Chris Cleave, follows a teenage Nigerian refugee as her life intertwines with Sarah Summers, Andrew O’Rourke, and Charlie O’Rourke. Cleave imagines a singular scene on a beach in Nigeria that unites Little Bee to the O’Rourke-Summers family. As both Little Bee and Sarah slowly tell and retell their stories of that event and those before and after it, their voices slowly unite. Bridging across countries and blending into a... Read Little Bee Summary
Murder on the Orient Express, first published in 1934, is a mystery by Agatha Christie featuring one of her most famous characters, the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. A locked-room mystery, the entire plot unfolds in a train, the Orient Express, which has become stranded in a snowstorm. Poirot happens to be on the train when a man named Mr. Ratchett is murdered. Poirot is called upon to solve the case, and the book follows his... Read Murder on the Orient Express Summary
My Name is Red (originally titled Benim Adim Kirmizi) is a 1998 historical novel by the Nobel Prize winning Turkish author Orhan Pamuk. Set in late-16th century Istanbul, the novel explores cultural tensions stemming from contemporary philosophical understandings of visual art. Told from the viewpoints of many different animate and inanimate characters—including Muslim and Jewish individuals, a corpse, the color red, and paintings of a horse, a devil, and a dog—the novel integrates elements of... Read My Name is Red Summary
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America is a 2001 nonfiction book written by Barbara Ehrenreich. This book is considered a classic of investigative journalism and was ranked #13 in The Guardian’s list of the 100 best books of the 21st century. Ehrenreich takes a series of low-paying, entry-level jobs in three cities (Key West, Florida; Portland, Maine; Minneapolis, Minnesota) to answer the question of whether one can survive on these wages and... Read Nickel and Dimed Summary
Planet of Slums is a non-fiction book published in 2006 by American author and urban theorist Mike Davis. It chronicles the spread of poverty in cities around the world at a time when more than a billion people live in what the United Nations (UN) classifies as "slums."SummaryIn 1950, only 86 cities around the world had populations of one million people or more. When Davis wrote this book in 2005, he predicted that by 2015... Read Planet of Slums Summary
Prisoner of Tehran is a memoir by Marina Nemat that recounts her harrowing experiences in an Iranian prison post-1979 revolution, highlighting The Impact of Political and Ideological Repression. Through her narrative, Nemat explores The Challenges Faced by Women Under Authoritarian Regimes, illustrating the severe constraints and injustices they endured. Despite these adversities, her story is a testament to The Resilience of the Human Spirit, which showcases her journey of survival and defiance against oppressive forces.This... Read Prisoner of Tehran Summary
Sea of Poppies, a novel by Amitav Ghosh published in 2008, tells the intertwining stories of several people who find themselves aboard the Ibis, a former slave ship, in the early 19th century. The principal characters are aboard the ship under varying and more and less desirable circumstances, and employing varying levels of deception. The novel takes place shortly before the First Opium War, and its major themes are of imperialism and colonialism under a... Read Sea of Poppies Summary
Lt. General Roméo Dallaire is a Canadian officer who was assigned as the force commander in the United Nations Assistance Mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR), a UN peacekeeping mission to facilitate negotiations after the Rwandan Civil War. He wrote about his experiences witnessing the breakdown of the peace process and the Rwandan Genocide in Shake Hands With The Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda. Published in 2003, the book won the 2004 Governor General’s Award... Read Shake Hands with the Devil Summary
The Beach is an adventure fiction novel written by Alex Garland and originally published in 1996. Garland wrote the book during his time in the Philippines and was inspired by the landscape there, as well as historical events such as the Vietnam War. It was adapted into a successful major motion picture starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Danny Boyle in 2000, and the novel was included on a BBC list of most-read novels in... Read The Beach Summary
The Competitive Advantage of Nations is a 1990 work of economics by American author Michael E. Porter, a Harvard Business School professor and expert in corporate competitive strategy whose influential works are frequently cited in business and economics. In this book, Porter dismantles traditional economic theories about how well a nation fares in global competition (factor costs and macro-economic policy) and proposes a model that focuses on active and malleable factors of business rather than... Read The Competitive Advantage Of Nations Summary
The Harbinger, by Jonathan Cahn, a Messianic Jewish rabbi and author, is Cahn’s debut novel. The Harbinger is described as a Christian novel; it uses and relies on themes, concepts, and scripture that are prevalent in the Old Testament. It was initially published in September 2011 by FrontLine, an imprint of Charisma House, which is a religious publishing group dedicated to spreading religious messages. FrontLine is the imprint of Charisma House used for discussing cultural... Read The Harbinger Summary
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston is a non-fiction thriller, published in 1994, two years after his article “Crisis in the Hot Zone” appeared in The New Yorker. Preston writes often on Ebola, bioweapons, and emerging viruses. The Hot Zone deals with the breaking of Ebola into the human species and a 1989 incident in which an Ebola-like virus, the Reston virus, sweeps through a monkey quarantine facility outside of Washington, DC. The book served... Read The Hot Zone Summary
The Lexus and the Olive Tree is a nonfiction work by Thomas L Friedman, a New York Times foreign affairs reporter turned opinion columnist. Friedman has won three Pulitzer Prizes for General Non-Fiction and won the National Book Award for From Beirut to Jerusalem (1989), his memoir about reporting Middle East relations. He is also notable for his 2005 book, The World Is Flat, which focuses on many of the same themes as The Lexus... Read The Lexus and the Olive Tree Summary
Jonathan D. Spence’s The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (1984) is a biography of 16th-century Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci. Spence is a former professor of history at Yale University and a specialist in Chinese history. The biography is a study of cross-cultural exchange between Ming China and Counter-Reformation Europe. It charts Ricci’s attempts to teach a mnemonic device called the memory palace to scholarly elites in Ming China and his experiences as a missionary in... Read The Memory Palace Of Matteo Ricci Summary
Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger was published in 2008. Adiga’s first novel, The White Tiger won the Man Booker Prize and was adapted into a movie in 2021. Born in Chennai, India, Adiga has lived in India and Australia, and attended Columbia University in New York and Oxford University in England. A coming-of-age story told through a first-person narrator and letters addressed to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, The White Tiger examines the conflict between tradition... Read The White Tiger Summary
In This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein explores the issue of climate change from a political perspective and considers why we have failed as yet to respond to the global danger it poses.Klein bases her argument on the scientific consensus that at projected rates of carbon emission we are heading towards an environmental catastrophe that would irreparably damage the natural world, destroy lives, and destabilise human society. She asks the question: considering the stakes are so... Read This Changes Everything Summary
The novel Thousand Cranes (in Japanese, Senbazuru) was written by Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata. It was originally published in serialized form between 1949 and 1951 and compiled with another of Kawabata’s novels, Snow Country (1948), in book form in 1952. The narrative follows Kikuji, an orphaned young businessman, as he navigates the legacy of his father’s infidelity against the backdrop of traditional Japanese tea culture. It explores themes of Decay of Traditions and Values, Legacy:... Read Thousand Cranes Summary
Karen Tei Yamashita’s Through the Arc of the Rain Forest (1990) is a magical realist story from Coffee House Press. Narrated by a sentient floating sphere, the story primarily takes place in Brazil. Utilizing fantastical elements, the novel addresses issues of environmentalism, economic inequality, and faith.Plot SummaryA sentient ball narrates the novel in the first person and provides third person narration for the other characters. The story opens on the shores of Japan, where the... Read Through the Arc of the Rain Forest Summary
Vermeer’s Hat is a thought-provoking narrative by art historian Timothy Brook. The full title of the book, Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World, indicates the comprehensive outlook Brook seeks to approach in the eight chapters comprising the book. The book’s namesake is Johannes Vermeer, a Dutch painter from Delft, who is known for his use of light and the textual clues that abound in his artwork. Brook uses five... Read Vermeer's Hat Summary
