Globaloney 2.0: The Crash of 2008 and the Future
of Globalization
I've recently finished a book called Globaloney 2.0: The Crash of 2008
and the Future of Globalization. It will be out in
early 2010. It's a major revision of
my 2005 book Globaloney that will include major chapters on
the financial crisis and its implications. Here's a working
description.
The idea that there is no
alternative to the global market is dead for now as the world
economic crisis has unmasked that “globaloney.” Globalization is in
retreat, but history tells us that this is but a temporary reversal.
Globalization will return, but in what form? More cycles of boom
and bust? Or can globalization be rebuilt on a more feasible and
sustainable platform? These are the compelling questions that
Michael Veseth tackles in this thoroughly revised and updated
edition of his award-winning book, illuminating the path to a
sustainable global future.
Go to the Globaloney 2.0 website at
Globaloney2.com for more
information.
Talks and Interviews
I've been busy
recently giving talks and interviews about wine, the economy and the
wine economy. I was interviewed about wine and the recession by an animated cartoon avatar named Roger
Numbers in November 2008. You can see the amusing and
informative result by clicking on this image.
I spoke about globalization to the Juneau World Affairs Council in November
2008, explained the Washington wine industry to
Tacoma's Sunrise Rotary Club in December 2008 and talked about
the global economic prospects to the Cherry Institute (the annual international
cherry industry conference) in Yakima, Washington in January 2009.
I moderated a panel on the financial crisis at Puget Sound in
February.
Here is a 90-minute video of a March 2009
panel discussion I did along with Professors
Alva Butcher and Leon Grunberg and Todd Benjamin (ex CNN/London
financial editor) hosted by President Ron Thomas. (Puget Sound
alumni: watch for cameo appearances by Phil Phibbs and Florence
Sandler.)
The Revenge of the Terroirists
I wrote about the global wine business in my award-winning book
Globaloney and I found it so interesting that I'm writing another
book on the subject, working title The Future of Wine: Globalization,
Two Buck Chuck and the Revenge of the Terroirists. (Yes, the
spelling's correct -- seeterroir.) I'm also
teaching a class called The Idea of Wine
this fall and working on a number of wine-related projects.
The best way to see whatI am up to is to read my blog,
The Wine Economist -- it is
what you get when you combine Wine Spectator with the
Economist.
In the News:
I've been interviewed about global wine by the
Tacoma Sun,
Foreign Policy, the popular supermarket magazine Cooking
Light and a British political journal;
recently asked to comment on the future of Argentinian wine for
WineSur
On May 4, 2007 I received the happy news of my appointment to the
Robert G. Albertson Professorship beginning in academic year
2008-2009. Here is the email memo from President Thomas.
Dear Colleagues,
I am very pleased to announce that Michael Veseth has been
named the next Robert G. Albertson Professor. I have made this
appointment after receiving the recommendations of a faculty
committee consisting of Barry Anton, Mott Greene, and Ken
Rousslang, chaired by Kris Bartanen, and on my own review of
Professor Veseth's outstanding record over a thirty-one year
career at Puget Sound.
The donors who endowed the professorship wanted to honor
members of the faculty "who are personally and professionally
committed to undergraduate teaching and teaching excellence." In
addition, they wished to recognize a member of the faculty whose
work is rigorouslyinterdisciplinary.
Bob Albertson
During his five-year term, Professor Veseth will contribute new
courses to the Core curriculum at the lower division and upper
division levels, including both Connections courses and Scholarly
& Creative Inquiry Seminars. His particular focus will be on
helping students to understand more fully complex tensions of
globalization through analysis of ordinary structures of everyday
life, including soccer, wine, and the European Union. As the
university moves forward to enrich its distinctive disciplinary
and interdisciplinary strengths in globally-focused education,
Professor Veseth's work on the conflicts and contradictions
highlighted by processes of globalization is timely and creative.
His selection emerged from an extraordinary pool of nominees for
the position that presented a daunting challenge to the committee.
Mike Veseth returned to Puget Sound in 1975, after earning a
bachelor's degree in economics and mathematics here in 1972, and
M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics at Purdue University in 1974
and 1975, respectively. With the collaboration of faculty
colleagues across several departments, he founded in 1994 the
International Political Economy program, a program that is now
among Puget Sound's five largest in terms of graduating majors.
Mike is a legendary teacher and prodigious scholar, having
authored or co-authored with Puget Sound colleagues several widely
used textbooks in Economics and in IPE and published other
scholarly work, including, most recently, the acclaimed
Globaloney: Unraveling the Myths of Globalization. He has
been recognized by students with several teaching awards, and has
received invitations to lecture for regional, national, and
international events; in the summers of 2005 and 2006 he served as
Economics Professor for the American Institute on Political and
Economic Systems in Prague.
When Mike's term as Albertson Professor begins in 2008-2009, he
will be the fifth member of the Puget Sound faculty to be honored
as Robert G. Albertson Professor. The inaugural recipients of this
significant recognition were Professor of Physics Jim Clifford and
Professor of English Frank Cousens, followed by Professor of
History Terry Cooney (who vacated the chair during his tenure as
Dean) and Professor of History Suzanne Barnett. Having recently
celebrated the remarkable life of Bob Albertson and his intense
dedication to students and to the enduring power of the liberal
arts, we take special pride in what this chair represents about
our faculty and offer our warmest congratulations to Mike Veseth
on being named to it.
Ron Thomas
Globalization?
Or Globaloney?
My most recent book, Globaloney:
Unraveling the Myths of Globalization (Rowman &
Littlefield, 2005) was named one of the
Best Business Books of 2005 by Library Journal. (the
other books are The World is Flat by Thomas
Friedman, One Billion Customers by James McGregor,
The Travels of a T-Shirt by Pietra Rivoli and
The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs.)
The original
publisher, Fitzroy Dearborn, suffered financial problems
after 9/11 (some of their offices were in the World Trade
Center -- need I say more?) and the book disappeared from
the market. But now the British publisher Routledge
has taken over the title and it is available once again.
Click on the cover to go to the Routledge
web page. This book tells the story of the rise and
fall and rise again (and fall again?) of globalization in the 20th Century.
It includes about 450 articles and 100 images taken from 100 years of the New York Times.Times
economics editor Louis Uchitelle wrote the introduction. Maxine Cram (a 2001 IPE graduate) was my editorial assistant
on this big project.
Oxford
University Press has announced that my 1990 book Mountains of Debt: Crisis and Change in Renaissance Florence,
Victorian Britain, and Postwar America is back in print. That's good news for people who haven't read this
classic study of structural change and fiscal crisis, but it's bad news for the rest of us because it is a sign
that debt and deficits are once again an economic problem.
