This book not only discusses the link between the economy and its impact on the environment, but it also provides readers with examples of the specific challenges that this transformation of the world economy, globalization, raises for eleven developing countries. Its most outstanding feature is that it regards the debate on globalization and the environment from the perspective of developing countries (Global South) while managing to avoid the oversimplified view of globalization as the villain and the environment in developing countries as the victim. The book is not only of great interest to experts on the world economy, and academics concerned with the environment, but will also appeal to readers who are not necessarily specialists in the economy, the environment, or globalization.
Vicente Ugalde, El Colegio de Mexico
This book brings together an impressive collection of scholars working on environmental challenges facing the Global South in an age of globalization. With rich and in-depth analysis from across the regions of the Global South, each chapter examines not only the uneven environmental impacts of globalization but also the mobilization of civil society to respond to these challenges. With its focus on Southern perspectives on these issues, this book makes an important contribution to the literature on global environmental policy and politics.
Jennifer Clapp, Environment and Resource Studies, University of Waterloo
The idea that globalization negatively affects the environment is an unexamined truism for many people. This timely book takes up that claim and assesses it with a series of case studies from the Global South, covering a number of countries whose environmental politics is scarcely known. Both Jordi Diez's theoretical overview and the country chapters reach the same conclusion: globalization clearly brings many negative environmental consequences and challenges to the Global South. However, globalization also has provided some of the tools to address those problems. This set of claims will surely stir debate, but the well-researched country chapters provide compelling evidence for them. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the countries whose handling of the globalization dilemma will determine the shape of much of 'our common future.'
Kathryn Hochstetler, University of New Mexico
