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Re: reference suggestion -- 2nd try by Quee-Young Kim 02 May 2002 22:22 UTC |
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Hi, If you are looking for an overview of the processes of evolution of modern interstate system, especially for undergraduates, try Chapter 1, "The Territorial State and Global Politics" in Global Transformations, prepared by David Held, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt, and Jonathan Perraton. Also try "The European System Becomes Worldwide," in Adam Watson, in The Evolution of International Society. For your second question, (incidentally, I would like to point out some troubling underlying assumptions in your second question. Cultural forms of business did not and do not spread from the center to the periphery, for that matter, in a certain identifiable uniform pattern), you may have to go to a number of case studies rather than any single satisfactory work. In the above mentioned Global Transformations, you may find two or three chapters that deal with globalization of financial activities and global diffusion of corporate forms of business. If you want to introduce to your students specific details about things like, the introduction of business suit, office building, etc. in other cultures, you should try the excellent historical example from the Japanese Meiji period. Try works by Marius Jansen and of other scholars who have studied the transition of Japan from the Tokugawa to Meiji period. If you want some contrasts for comparative purposes, try some works by Jonathan Spence (about China, if you are interested in questions like, Why did the Chinese mandarins fail to change into the Western forms? Or why did the Japanese 'samurais" successfully transform themselves into 'Western-style' businessmen? ). As Max Weber must have learned many years ago, the "profit and wealth accumulation as a creed" are historically and culturally specific, somewhat grounded in a tension between religious tradition and the quest for legitimacy of new opportunity structure. There are several excellent critiques (and re-analyses) of the classic, "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" and it is usually a great undergraduate experience of having to go through the literature and critiques. Quee-Young Kim Sociology University of Wyoming Kim@uwyo.edu -----Original Message----- From: Elson Boles [mailto:boles@svsu.edu] Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 8:11 AM To: 'WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK' Subject: reference suggestion -- 2nd try I'm reposting this for your help. Surely there's some intelligent and well-read person out there who has run across something that approaches what I'm looking for. (Steve sent one recommendation which comes close to fitting the bill -- Meyers et al article 'the nation-state and world society' in The Globalization Reader (eds. Boli and Lechner) -- but it's a little too difficult for intro students as he noted). I'm looking for two articles for an introductory level Global Cultures course. 1. an article on the modern interstate system / political institutions is a cultural formation or process, that is, how people across the planet have become socially organized and interact through the modern political institutions (sovereign states, diplomacy, international law, etc.) and ideology (e.g. sovereignty, national development, modern "civilization," the rule of law, diplomacy, etc.). That is, a not-too-long article which sums up and introduces students to the basic idea that the interstate system is a global and globalizing cultural institution. 2. an article with similar intentions but focused on modern business forms as cultural forms, including such aspects as the spread of the modern business suit, the cultural of office buildings and factories as common cultural-architectural forms, profit and wealth accumulation as a creed, rationalization of work organization, impersonal bureaucratic organization, the port city, industrial, and corporate cities and their environs. (On business time, I'm considering EP Thompson, but that doesn't cover the 20th century). If you know of articles that speak to these issues and can be understood by undergraduate students, I'd very much appreciate hearing from you. Elson Boles Assistant Professor Dept. of Sociology Saginaw Valley State University University Center Saginaw MI, 48710
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