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Nation Books

HOW TO RULE THE WORLD: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy
by Mark Engler
(Nation Books, Release Date: April 7, 2008, ISBN 978-1568583655)

"As the world readies to heave a collective sigh of relief upon George W. Bush's exit from the White House, How to Rule the World is a caution against complacency. Mark Engler offers a timely reminder that before Bush's boots and bombs there was Clinton's corporate 'consensus'--more soothing perhaps but no more sustainable than the neocons' disastrous militarism. He then makes a case that there lies a third choice: democracy. Impressively researched and sharply argued, How to Rule the World is an essential handbook not for the few who do rule the world but for the many who should."

--GREG GRANDIN, author of Empire's Workshop

Right now a debate is taking place over what values should define our international order. For global elites, it is a debate about how to rule the world. Laying out a new and original framework for understanding globalization politics, Mark Engler describes the conflict between a Clinton-era vision of an expanding, corporate-controlled global economy and a Bush-era "imperial globalization" based on U.S. military dominance. How to Rule the World explains how these visions overlap and also how, at critical moments, they clash with one another. It is written, however, in the hopes that neither will prevail. Even as Wall Street CEOs and Washington militarists argue among themselves, citizens' uprisings in the United States, in an increasingly progressive Latin America, and beyond are bringing to life a vibrant "democratic globalization" based on economic justice, human rights, and self-determination.

Engler, a journalist, activist, and policy expert, details how the Bush administration has reshaped globalization in ways that few protesters in Seattle or elsewhere could have foreseen: Global trade talks are collapsing. The roles of international institutions like the WTO, IMF, and World Bank are dramatically changing. U.S. unilateralism and the disastrous war in Iraq have deepened international divisions. As a result, the stage is now set for a critical new debate about the global economy.

"Unique and indispensable..."
--JEREMY BRECHER, Author

"Full of passion, hope, and insight..."
--FRIDA BERRIGAN, New America Foundation

"Never was a book more timely."
--Andy Bichlbaum, THE YES MEN

Mark Engler is a writer based in New York City and an analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus. His articles appear in Dissent, The Nation, Newsday, the Progressive, the San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones, and In These Times. An archive of his work is available at www.DemocracyUprising.com.

An activist originally from Des Moines, Iowa, Mark is a member of the National Writers Union (UAW, Local 1881). He has previously worked with the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress in San José, Costa Rica, and he has also lived in Guatemala and El Salvador.

Topics of discussion relevant to How to Rule the World include:

--How the Bush administration's militarism has transformed the globalization debate, and how the politics of opposing empire will again change as Bush and Cheney leave office.

--Where all the global justice protests went, and why they can come back.

--How Hillary Clinton's vision of a pro-corporate world order differs from John McCain's vision of U.S. empire, and how we can promote a democratic alternative.

--Why issues of trade and development are creating a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party.

--Why right-wing critics, along with progressive protesters, have turned against the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization.

--Why "free market" neoliberalism, which has dominated world affairs for two decades, is now falling apart, and how this creates vital opportunities for building a better global order.

--How uprisings throughout Latin America are creating an exciting globalization from below.

--What alternatives are available to counter the type of "free trade" future promoted by Thomas Friedman.

--What the prospects of a deep recession in the United States and abroad might mean for those struggling for global justice.

--What connections exist between war and globalization, and how the invasion of Iraq represents a break from earlier models of corporate expansion.

--What impact the anti-war and global justice protests of the past years have made.

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