Well, campers, my teaching team has started planning for the winter, and
I'm wondering if any of you can recommend a good book on the global
economy. The ideal book would:
discuss the origin, management, and consequences of third world debt,
the politics and economics of structural adjustment,
liberalization of capital flows and instability in foreign exchange
markets,
debates within, between, and against the international financial
institutions,
the east Asian financial crisis,
and the upsurge in global inequality.
It would also:
put all of this within a political context, and
be readable by students with the equivalent of intro micro, intro macro,
and political economy.
It isn't necessary to have a book that "theorizes" all of this in some
novel way or pushes a particular interpretation. The most important
thing is to convey the facts of recent history, the political and
institutional context, and the types of arguments different people are
making. (Yes, I know, some degree of theoretical commitment is
necessary to do these things, but I'm more interested in the planets
than the telescope right now...)
Peter