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much a part of the neo-liberal agenda and have practically become the face of civil s ociety in Colombia and elsewhere. But the practice of movements from below in Latin America is contesting this view through grass roots mass organising, based on transparency where hierarchy and centralisation are considered as impediments to democracy. They contend that in Latin America nowadays, civil society is neither contrasted to the state nor viewed as a niche where only “non-government” affairs are to be conducted. Instead, civil society is increasingly becoming the source of ideas, motives and desires that may provide the foundation towards a responsible and accountable order that embodies the will of the people.

In Chapter 7 Gautney contests the changing notion of state sovereignty under neoliberal globalisation. He brings out the changing equation between state and corporations in the favour of latter through the energy crisis that was manufactured by Enron in California that cost the exchequer $30 billion but finally the democratic governor Gray Davis was blamed who actually tried to rein in Enron.

In the following chapter, Roberts discusses “the dialectic of labour and capital in globalisation”. He avers that the time for the trade union strategy of corporatism, that emphasises cooperation between capital and labour (as a junior partner), by the American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organisations (AFL-CIO) under Keynesianism is up. Even in its hey days it could never challenge the militaryindustrial complex, wars or environmental degradation. He counterposes it with the syndicalist traditions of AFL and Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) between the civil war and New Deal which emphasised the struggle over labour process and control of labour markets. While AFL fought for keeping the immigrants out by involving the State and signing contracts with the owners, the capital moved where it could find more pliable and cheaper workers. In contrast IWW actively organised the “others”, like African Americans and immigrants to thwart drawing of strike breakers from such groups and also struggled for shorter hours.

‘Constructing Unreality’

In Chapter 9, Semm brings about the farce of global media and its attempts at

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constructing “unreality”. About 10 conglomerates dominate the global media with several dozen smaller media corporations dominating the regional markets. These conglomerates are a key weapon in the ideological war through production, distribution and exhibition of entertainment, advertising, and carefully framed and targeted “news” shows with a reach in every corner of the globe and publicprivate spaces. They peddle all kinds of conceivable “infotainment”, the combination of entertainment and information, from TV programmes, newspapers, books, music to films, that emphasise violence, natural disasters and celebrities but would not show wars and corporate crime. Hence, contrarian views on globalisation are hard to find but any amount of footage can be given to global warming deniers in the name of “neutrality”. The whole idea is to make the viewers anxious, angry and afraid, as such people make good subjects for advertisements and consumption. In any case the customer of the commercial media is not the viewer but the advertiser; hence estimates suggest that 40-70% of news is from press releases and public relations material. In the process while the “common people” are kept busy in consuming and mostly working so that they can find a toehold in the marketplace, the technocratic elite decide as per the wishes of their capitalist masters. Thus the job of the media is to create “a desiring person”, whose desires never get fulfilled. But the author also reminds us that this ideological war serves only a limited purpose as several billion people are outside the scope of globalisation – cut from the culture of advertisements, consumption, etc, and in their agency lies real hope of an alternative.

In Chapter 10, Krammer and Kim characterise the ruling elite as “global players” – players as opposed to workers, while the latter work the former “play” at the global stage. Global players disregard any rules or given structures and claim exceptionalism for themselves; they stand for self-interest without regard to any morality or law and thus reason becomes utterly subjective for them. All they service are markets and manipulate accounts and have no accountability for their actions. The players have their own set of games such as “super yacht envy” where they compete to own

progressively bigger yachts. They need the buffer of the middle classes in order to create just enough mobility to prevent revolts. And failure to partake into the global sweepstakes for the majority is converted into private guilt and reasoned as personal faults.

In the next chapter, Arxer and Reznik make a case for critical education. In the functionalist sense, schooling is the source of socialisation and its purpose is to create the “well rounded subjects” who can fit in. In such a scheme of things, critical thinking can be a distraction and frustrate the “absorption of the present world”. The purpose of such an education is to reproduce the present order, not to change it as the course of history is already set, independent of human action. Neo-liberalism transforms students and education into commodities, fit only for the marketplace and the purpose of such an education is to manufacture products that can fit into the labour markets. Thus questioning the

o rder is supposed to be a waste of time as only econo mics matters and there is no place for politics.

Possibilities Beyond

Though the predominant agenda of the volume is to critique the neo-liberal globalisation, many of the articles do reflect on the possibilities beyond the present order. For instance Esposito contends that one cannot speak about the immutable human nature outside the human relations in which people are situated. Genuine freedom requires breaking from both atomised individualism as well as blind collectivism and he proposes “reproductive rationality” that preserves the natural circuit of human life in terms of individual needs – material and spiritual, as well as external needs, that is the ecology in which life can thrive. He argues for a complete break from the neo-liberal fundamentalism and creating parallel institutions with attending alternate values. In Chapter 6, Rasch makes a case for a “new civil society” which engenders “democracy from below” where community empowerment along Gramscian lines should take place. Gautney agrees and argues that, like the Zapatistas in the Chiapas in Mexico, the state need not be at the heart of a movement for social change. Making a case for altering the equation between labour

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and capital, Roberts argues for going back to the demand of May Day for shorter work hours, but this time at a global scale. Arxer and Reznik contend for a pedagogy based on critical thinking which can demonstrate the limits of the present, intersect the necessary and possible, and thus bring a “disruptive moment”. For them alternatives can be imagined only if students are allowed to dream.

Though many chapters have interesting ideas, it is a collection of 13 different papers that is hard to integrate; possibly that is why the editors have not attempted to conclude the collection or categorise them in the introductory chapter. Some chapters are long winding and could have made the point in a more concise manner. Some of the treatment is repetitive but possibly this

Barooah, Nirode K (2010); Gopinath Bardoloi, The Assam Problem and Nehru’s Centre (Guwahati: Bhabani Print & Publications); pp xxiv + 675, Rs 690.

Beteille, Andre (2011); The Andre Beteille Omnibus (New Delhi: Oxford University Press); pp xxii + 269, Rs 950.

Bose, Sarmila (2011); Dead Reckoning: Memoirs of the 1971 Bangladesh War (Gurgaon: Hachette India); pp x + 239, Rs 495.

Brass, Paul R (2011); An Indian Political Life: Charan Singh and Congress Politics, 1937 to 1961 (Vol 1: The Politics of Northern India 1937 to 1987) (New Delhi: Sage Publications); pp xxx + 575, Rs 895.

Crouch, Colin (2011); The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism (Cambridge: Polity Press); pp xii + 199, price not indicated.

Fernandes, Walter and Gita Bharali (2011); Uprooted for Whose Benefit? Development-Induced Displacement in Assam 1947-2000 (Guwahati: North Eastern Social Research Centre); pp x + 734, Rs 350.

Gokarn, Subir, ed. (2011); Challenges to Central Banking in the Context of Financial Crisis: The International Research Experience (New Delhi: Academic Foundation); in association with RBI, pp 492, Rs 1,295.

Gottlob, Michael (2011); History and Politics in Post-Colonial India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press); pp xi + 300, Rs 695.

Guha, Kalyan (2011); An Enquiry on Issues of Political Economy: Collected Essays (Kolkata: Priyashilpa Prakashan); pp 180 + x, Rs 200.

Gupta, Shishir (2011); Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Gurgaon: Hachette India); pp xiv + 314, Rs 550.

Hale, Thomas and David Held, ed. (2011); Handbook of Transnational Governance: Institutions & Innovations

(Cambridge: Polity Press); pp xxv + 412, £18.99 (pb).

Hofmeyr, Isabel and Michelle Williams, ed. (2011);

South Africa & India: Shaping the Global South

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Hughes, Barry B, ed. (2011); Improving Global Health: Forecasting the Next 50 Years – Patterns of Potential Human Progress (Vol 3) (New Delhi: Oxford University Press); with Paradigm Publishers, and Pardee Center, pp 345, Rs 995.

cannot be avoided in a collection of this kind. Some of the later chapters do not gel very well with the rest of the collection. Moreover, though the stated agenda of the volume is to question the deterministic ideological basis of the present order, at times the arguments in a few articles seem to be reverting back to determinism, like when a concrete alternative model is being proposed in the last chapter on “scenario planning”. Similarly, attempts to draw from the prestige of physical sciences – quantum theory and chaos for example, in a couple of chapters is not particularly convincing and perhaps a critique of the present and imagining of a better future has to be situated in the specificities of humans and their collective institutions – there is very much a need