Product Description

Since humans migrated from Africa and progressively dispersed throughout the world, they have found countless ways and reasons to reconnect with each other. In this entertaining book, Nayan Chanda follows the exploits of traders, preachers, adventurers, and warriors throughout history as they have shaped and reshaped the world. For Chanda, globalization is a process of ever-growing interconnectedness and interdependence that began thousands of years ago and continues to this day with increasing speed and ease. In the end, globalization - from the lone adventurer carving out a new trade route to the expanding ambitions of great empires - is the product of myriad aspirations and apprehensions that define just about every aspect of our lives: what we eat, wear, ride, or possess is the product of thousands of years of human endeavour and suffering across the globe. Chanda reviews and illustrates the economic and technological forces at play in globalization today and concludes with a thought-provoking discussion of how we can and should embrace an inevitably global world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #472135 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

Financial World Magazine, March, 2007
'What stands out in Bound Together is its astonishing historical
reach, which provides the basis for Chanda's examination of globalisation.'

The Economist
'Mr. Chanda makes a solid and attractive case for globalisation and its potential as a force for good.'

About the Author
Nayan Chanda is director of publications, Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and editor, YaleGlobal Online. He is former editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly.

Customer Reviews

Balanced, Matter-of-Fact
Nayan Chanda's premise is that the phenomenon that we call "globalisation" is nothing new. It is an ongoing process, begun by the first humans to leave Africa 50,000 years ago in search of a better life. He argues that the process has been driven principally by 4 types of humans: traders, preachers, adventurers and warriors.

It is relatively superficial read. This is understandable because cramming a history of the "globalisation" into a 300 page book is no mean feat. Mr Chanda argues that the process of closer integration whether driven by trade, adventure, war or proselytising zeal left winners and losers in its wake. He aptly gives examples of the effect of European trade/colonial expansion on the the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the decimation of the native peoples of the Americas and Australia and the rise of industrial cities in England. While the losers of previous waves of "globalisation" were the enslaved and dispossessed, the losers of today's integration are victims of human traffickers, sweatshop workers and downsized white collar workers.

Mr Chanda does not just provide a dry reading of facts and figures. He spices the narrative up with interesting details about the travels of Ibn-Battuta, Marco Polo, the use of Hindu numerals, the founding of Algebra etc. These nuggets of information colour the narrative that would otherwise read like a scholarly tome. (The bibliography is extensive).

The author seems to feed a few misconceptions though. In Chapter 5, he states that "destitute out-of-Africa migration to pre-occupy Europe...Cueta is the new corridor for African migration to Europe". The truth is slightly more nuanced. The so-called brain-drain of African skilled labour accounts for a comparable scale of migration to Europe and the US. Since these skilled doctors, engineers and administrators leaving the continent do not huddle in boats and brave the perils of the sea, they are less visible. Hence, they do not make for sensational headlines.

Sometimes in making his point the author confuses the facts. In Chapter 5, the author incorrectly stated that in 2004 the Nigerian government threatened to execute a moslem woman for adultery and that the government only backed down after it was isolated by the international community. The facts: It was not the Nigerian government that threatened to execute the woman but a state government in a predominantly moslem state in the country. Furthermore, Nigeria was not "isolated". The state government in question backed down after pressure from the Nigerian government itself. In view of the scope of the book, these errors are forgivable.

In Chapter 9, Who's Afraid of Globalisation, Mr Chanda rightly points out that the West is seen to be changing the rules of the game when the score is not in its favour. Rising anti-globalisation sentiment is driving voters into the arms of right-wing parties in the West. How ironic.

The book is a good introduction to the subject, as it gives air to the arguments for and against globalisation and puts it in its correct historical context: that humans will always seek a better life by fostering closer integration. That there will be winners and losers and that is ahistorical to expect otherwise. The author states matter-of-factly that today's skilled workforce cannot expect life-long job security. The successful workers in today's economy will be those who are flexible and ready to make multiple career changes to meet the demands of the changing, fluid workplace. How true. It is a message that I have personally taken to heart.