The World Today - announcement

Wed, 21 Aug 1996 03:48:13 -0400
GregoryS9@aol.com

Now available is a special double issue:

"The World Today" (Social Justice, Volume 23, Nos. 1-2, 1996, 375 pp.)

In their "Preface," Pablo Gonzalez Casanova and John Saxe-Fernandez state:

In December 1993, the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in
the Sciences and Humanities of the National University of
Mexico organized a seminar entitled "The World Today:
Situation and Alternatives." Its task was to examine the central
concerns and problems facing humanity in the final stage of the
20th century, beginning with the certainty that as the world
order that arose out of World War II disintegrates and we
enter a new phase, which is barely taking shape, the irrational
paradoxes and tendencies of the modern era require analysis
and discovery of a new Reason. With the goal of inviting
diagnosis, and as far as possible, explanations and prognoses
as a basis for proposing alternatives to the current global,
regional, and national junctures in a period of crisis and
transition like the present, the participants contributing to this
volume were encouraged to provide the most powerful
explanations available to the social sciences.

Our goal was not only to describe the world situation, but also
to identify and evaluate options and obstacles to the
establishment of a humanist agenda for the 21st century. The
obstacles are greater than we imagined and must be
recognized if they are to be overcome. The undeniable fact is
that the three great blueprints for a less unjust world have
failed for one reason or another: the social democracy of the
more advanced capitalist countries, because it joined with the
new colonialism of the late 19th century; the real socialism of
the East, because it could not overcome totalitarian
dictatorship and fell into corruption; the nationalism of the
poor countries, because it drifted into corrupt authoritarian
populism and the chauvinism of the caciques (political bosses)
that preceded and accompanied the chauvinism of the peddlers
of associated dependency.

Table of Contents:

Editors' Preface
Pablo Gonzalez Casanova and John Saxe-Fernandez

1. The World

The Future of Global Polarization
Samir Amin

The New World Order and the Left
Ralph Miliband

Democracy and the World Order: Dilemmas and Conflicts
Bogdan Denitch

Globalism, Neoliberalism, and Democracy
Pablo Gonzalez Casanova

2. North America

Globalization and Stagnation
Arthur MacEwan

NAFTA: The Intersection of the Geopolitics and Geoeconomics of Capital
John Saxe-Fernandez

Globalization, States, and Left Strategies
Leo Panitch

3. Europe

Europes Crises
Daniel Singer

East-Central Europe: Transition to Market Economy and Democracy
Milos Nikolic

The Problem of Alternativeness in Russias Past, Present, and Eventual Future
Kiva Maidanik

4. Africa

Indirect Rule, Civil Society, and Ethnicity: The African Dilemma
Mahmood Mamdani

The State Subregion in the Future of Africa
Bernard Founou-Tchuigoua

5. The Arab World

The Arab World Today
Fawsy Mansour

Wither the Arabic World?
Faysal Yachir

6. Asia

India in the South Asian Context
Nirmal Kumar Chandra

Asia in the World-System
George Aseniero

The East and the World Today
William K. Tabb

Situating China
Lin Chun

Japan: Beyond the Lessons of Growth
Tessa Morris-Suzuki

7. Latin America

Latin America and the New World Order
Carlos M. Vilas

Governability and Democracy in Latin America
Atilio A. Boron

8. Australia

Australian Laborism, Social Democracy, and Social Justice into the 1990s
Peter Beilharz

9. World Conference on Women

After the Beijing Womens Conference: What Will Be Done?
Rita Maran

Reflections on the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing and Huairou,
1995
Gail Hershatter, Emily Honig, and Lisa Rofel

Copies are $19.95 plus $3.00 for postage and handling. MasterCard
and Visa orders may be sent to GregoryS9@aol.com (include
account number and expiration); checks made out to Social Justice
can be mailed to Social Justice, P.O. Box 40601, San Francisco, CA 94140.

Thank you, Gregory Shank (Managing Editor)