How to Rule the World

By Marc W. Barlow

A debate is taking place over what values should define the international order. For global elites, it is a debate about how to rule the world: a conflict between one vision of global order based on U.S. empire and another based on an expanding, corporate-controlled global economy. These visions are not entirely distinct. How to Rule the World explains how they overlap and also how, at critical moments, they clash with one another. The book is written, however, not from the perspective of power, but from the perspective of those who believe the world should be governed according to principles of democratic participation and self-determination. Mark Engler explains how the Bush administration has reshaped globalization in ways that will affect us for years to come. Such changes have created a setting that few protesters in Seattleor elsewhere could have foreseen: Global trade talks are collapsing. International institutions that drew protests, like the IMF and the World Bank, face uncertain futures. Moreover, U.S. unilateralism has created international divides that endanger the future progress of the type of multilateral globalization that thrived throughout the 1990s.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1568583656
• ISBN13: 9781568583655
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: Nation Books
• Length: 362 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.5" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Superb on every conceivable level

The specifics of the book have been covered in previous reviews, so I won't belabor them. Just want to note my agreement that this book is excellent. Unlike many political writers, Engler offers more than overheated rhetoric and common sense observations. There is a genuinely compelling argument here, one that is far more convincing than most generally accepted doctrine on the subject. An absolute must-read.

A different look at neolib/neocon thinking

With not much to add to the other reviews, this book has great depth and gives insightul knowledge of how the war in Iraq as well as The battle against the WTO, World Bank and IMF, needs to be thought out differently. The author doesn't spend his time attacking or belittling some of the common held views of the left, he simply adds to the argument, a refreshing thing when several books on the above subjects just keep repeating...

Important Reading for Changing Times

Engler's ideas are intelligent, interesting, and extremely relevant. His style is very clear and accessible. "How to Rule the World" is highly recommended reading for anyone concerned about US foreign policy and the global economy.

Harbinger of the new world

Mr. Engler describes the efforts of the greatest economic engine in the world (still), known to many as the United States, to determine and control the future of developing countries, whether by cloaked capitalism (Clinton-Blair third way neo-liberalism) or fiat (G.W.Bush aka Teddy Roosevelt). But, as he documents, that effort is failing, whatever its motivation, as the United States loses control not only of its economic...

Essential Reading for Understanding the World

This book is both terrific and important -- crisply written, sophisticated but accessible, and extremely valuable for progressives in the United States who want to reanimate the global justice movement here. First and foremost, Engler persuasively argues that the Bush administration has pursued a policy of unilateralist, nationalistic, and militarized "imperial globalization" that differs from the "corporate globalization"...