Jungle Capitalists

In this powerful and gripping book, Peter Chapman shows how the pioneering example of the banana importer United Fruit set the precedent for the institutionalized greed of today's multinational companies. From the business's 19th Century beginnings in the jungles of Costa Rica, via the mass-marketing of the banana as the original fast food, United Fruit's involvement in bloody coups in Guatemala and El Salvador, the mid-1970s and the spectacular suicide on Park Avenue of the company's chairman, from its bullying business practices to its covert links to the US government, United Fruit blazed the trail of global capitalism through the 20th Century. Chapman weaves a dramatic tale of big business, lies and power to show how one company pioneered the growth of globalization and - in doing so - has helped farm the banana to the point of extinction.

From the depths of the oceans to the highest reaches of the atmosphere, the human impact on the environment is significant and undeniable. These forms of global and local environmental change collectively appear to signal the arrival of a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. This is a geological era defined not by natural environmental fluctuations or meteorite impacts, but by collective actions of humanity. Environmental Transformations offers a concise and accessible introduction to the human practices and systems that sustain the Anthropocene. It combines accounts of the carbon cycle, global heat balances, entropy, hydrology, forest ecology and pedology, with theories of demography, war, industrial capitalism, urban development, state theory and behavioural psychology. This book charts the particular role of geography and geographers in studying environmental change and its human drivers. It provides a review of critical theories that can help to uncover the socio-economic and political factors that influence environmental change. It also explores key issues in contemporary environmental studies, such as resource use, water scarcity, climate change, industrial pollution and deforestation. These issues are ‘mapped’ through a series of geographical case studies to illustrate the particular value of geographical notions of space, place and scale, in uncovering the complex nature of environmental change in different socio-economic, political and cultural contexts. Finally, the book considers the different ways in which nations, communities and individuals around the world are adapting to environmental change in the twenty-first century. Particular attention is given throughout to the uneven geographical opportunities that different communities have to adapt to environmental change and to the questions of social justice this situation raises. This book encourages students to engage in the scientific uncertainties that surround the study of environmental change, while also discussing both pessimistic and more optimistic views on the ability of humanity to address the environmental challenges of our current era.

Does China represent a non-capitalist alternative to neoliberal development models? Commentators on the left have offered sharply divergent assessments over the last two decades. A few still cling the old dream of market socialism, twinning efficiency with social justice. For most, however, China is proof that market reforms invariably yield dispossession, inequality, and capitalist restoration. Is the East Still Red? argues that both interpretations are wrong and exhibit a common failure to distinguish between market mechanisms and capitalist imperatives. Gary Blank situates the Chinese experience within broader Marxist debates on socio-historical transitions and primitive accumulation, highlighting the need to conceptualize capitalism as a unique system in which producers and appropriators depend on the market for their reproduction. Despite years of marketization, the mandarins in Beijing have not yet imposed full market dependence in industry and agriculture. He shows how the resistance of workers and peasants, the imperatives of party-state legitimacy, and the reproductive strategies of individual Communist officials and managers all act to perpetuate central aspects of a bureaucratic-collectivist system, in which direct producers and bureaucrats are effectively merged with the means of production. The People’s Republic may be a non-capitalist market alternative, albeit one that is hardly edifying for socialists.

The spectre of 'Communism' was used to justify the expansion of American global leadership throughout the twentieth century. Nowhere was this more evident than in their 'backyard' of Latin America. The fear and hysteria created by the perceived communist menace justified the demonization of democratic reformers, the mischaracterization of political unrest, the overthrow of democratic regimes, the prolonged support of military dictatorships and the continued political and economic subservience of much of Latin America to the USA throughout the era of the Cold War and beyond. 'Pretext: Anti-Communism in Latin America' examines the origins of this hysteria from 1930-1965. It suggests that the academic focus on the rise and fall of communism has distracted analysis from the non-communist reformers who fought for democracy, social justice, and independent economic development. This timely reinterpretation of the origins of the Cold War in Latin America seeks to explain the continuing power imbalance between the US and the Latin American republics.

Using material from history, economics, sociology, and political science, Professor George Alan Hickrod weaves a structure that might be called 'Applied Liberalism" in An Embattled and Unapologetic Liberal. This groundbreaking work comprises unpublished material and editorials previously published in two McLean County, Illinois, newspapers, The Pantagraph and The Normalite. Professor Hickrod addresses a wide range of public policy issues from a liberal point of view. Hickrod addresses the following public policy questions: What do Liberals believe, and what might be the future of the Democratic Party? Why is the increasing inequality of wealth and income so dangerous to the Republic? What is wrong with the school funding system in Illinois, and how can we correct it? What is wrong with the way we formulate foreign policy in this nation, and what specifically went wrong in the Iraq War? What is the proper relationship of religion to governance? Not intended only for academia, An Embattled and Unapologetic Liberal is for the general public, progressive Republicans, and liberal Democrats.

This book seeks to deepen the reader’s understanding of the complex ethical and social disputes that corporations and managers face in an increasingly globalized world. It reviews the history and nature of global capitalism along with the role of the multinational within the global economy. Special attention is paid to emerging and frontier markets where there is economic potential but also major challenges due to institutional voids. Globalization is a constantly evolving field. In addition to exploring basic economic concepts and ethical frameworks, this second edition takes into account many new developments across different industries, ranging from "Big Tech" to "Big Pharma." It reviews some of the controversies that have affected those industries including bribery, censorship, the politics of computer networking, sweatshops, divestment, and the intensifying crisis of climate change. The book now includes short case studies to help spur creative reflection. Also, the revised content is highlighted in two new chapters – "Bribery and Corruption" and "Emerging and Frontier Markets." The book is ideal for use as a textbook on globalization, and specifically for courses that want to introduce a social responsibility or ethical component at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

"Utopian in theme and implication, this book shows how the practices of critical, interpretive inquiry can help change the world in positive ways.... This is the promise, the hope, and the agenda that is offered."--Norman K. Denzin, From the Foreword "Its focus on learning, education and pedagogy gives this book a particular relevance and significance in contemporary cultural studies. Its impressive authors, thoughtful structuring, wide range of perspectives, attention to matters of educational policy and practice, and suggestions for transformative pedagogy all provide for a compelling and significant volume."--H. Svi Shapiro, University of North Carolina–Greensboro Distinguished international scholars from a wide range of disciplines (including curriculum studies, foundations of education, adult education, higher education, and consumer education) come together in this book to explore consumption and its relation to learning, identity development, and education. Readers will learn about a variety of ways in which learning and education intersect with consumption. This volume is unique within the literature of education in its examination of educational sites – both formal and informal – where learners and teachers are resisting consumerism and enacting a critical pedagogy of consumption.

This book brings together a group of top international scholars who consider Pedagogy of Critique, Revolutionary Pedagogy and Radical Critical Pedagogy as forms of praxis to examine the paradoxical roles of schooling in reproducing and legitimizing large-scale structural inequalities.