`Globalization` has become one of the defining buzzwords of our time - a term that describes a variety of accelerating economic, political, cultural, ideological, and environmental processes that are rapidly altering our experience of the world. It is by its nature a dynamic topic. This Very Short Introduction has been fully updated for a fourth edition, to include recent developments in global politics, the global economy, and environmental issues.

Presenting globalization as a multifaceted process encompassing global, regional, and local aspects of social life, Manfred B. Steger looks at its causes and effects, examines whether it is a new phenomenon, and explores the question of whether, ultimately, globalization is a good or a bad thing. In this fourth edition Steger discusses some of the key features of recent years, such as the EU fiscal crisis, the rise of robot technology and new war technology with civilian usage such as drones, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, and new identity discussions around gender fluidity and sex change in the media.

Table of Contents:
Preface to the fourth edition
List of abbreviations
List of illustrations
List of maps
List of figures
1: Globalization: a contested concept
2: Globalization in history: is globalization a new phenomenon?
3: The economic dimension of globalization
4: The political dimension of globalization
5: The cultural dimension of globalization
6: The ecological dimension of globalization
7: Ideologies of globalization: market globalism, justice globalism, religious globalisms
8: The future of globalization
References
Further Reading
Index

Author Information:
Manfred B. Steger is Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawai`i-Manoa and Honorary Professor of Global Studies at RMIT University (Melbourne, AUS). He also served as a globalization consultant for the U.S. Department of State. He is the author or editor of twenty-five books on globalization and the history of political ideas, including The Rise of the Global Imaginary: Political Ideologies from the French Revolution to the Global War on Terror (OUP, 2008); the award-winning Globalisms: The Great Ideological Struggle of the 21st Century, 3rd ed. (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009); and What Is Global Studies? (Routledge, 2016).