Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to provide critical tools for, and background to, the chapters ahead. Part of this involves examining globalization’s historical dimension, which is vital in thinking about the specificity of the contemporary globalizing moment. In theoretical terms, we want to argue for the utility of critical theory as a way of approaching globalization, and critical theories of social change and analyses of modernity and development, which are linked in a number of crucial ways to discussions of globalization, are helpful in understanding the complexity of globalizing transformations. Above all, we insist on the inescapability of theorizing, and maintain that the imaginative and lively variety of critical theoretical approaches canvassed here shed significant light on globalization.
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Further reading
Arrighi, G. The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times (London: Verso, 1994).
Calhoun, C. Critical Social Theory: Culture, History and the Challenge of Difference (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995).
Held, D. Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).
Hirst, P. and Thompson, G. Globalization in Question (Cambridge: Polity, 1996).
Jay, M. The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923–50 (London: Heinemann, 1973).
Linklater, A. Beyond Realism and Marxism: Critical Theory and International Relations (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1990).
Mittelman, J. H. (ed.) Globalization: Critical Reflections (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1996).
Scholte, J. A. ‘Beyond the Buzzword: Towards a Critical Theory of Globalization’, in E. Kofman and G. Young (eds), Globalization: Theory and Practice (London: Pinter, 1996).
Wallerstein, I. World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004).
Webster, A. Introduction to the Sociology of Development, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan, 1990).
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© 2006 Patrick Hayden and Chamsy el-Ojeili
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el-Ojeili, C., Hayden, P. (2006). Theorizing Globalization: Introducing the Challenge. In: Critical Theories of Globalization. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230626454_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230626454_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-4039-8639-9
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-62645-4
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