Global Trends: The World Almanac of Development and Peace

Book by Hauchler, Ingomar

As the world's nations and peoples become more interconnected, the conditions in which they live and function are often very different. Those dual trends are the theme of Hauchler, a member of the German parliament, and Kennedy, a professor of international studies at Yale. They pull together an impressive array of development statistics to assess the "performance of the international system... and point out the steps...to bring about global governance." The categories covered range from religion to work to population, from the environment to finance to emerging technologies. Within these and other categories, they look at many more topics, although sketchedly at best. Readers seeking greater depth of analysis should look to the annual WorldWatch reports on the State of The World (Norton, 1984+). The global perspective offered can provide U.S. citizens points of comparison as they assess the performance of their own social and economic systems. Recommended for college and larger public libraries.?Bill Rau, Takoma Park, Md.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This book is a project of the International Development and Peace Foundation and is jointly edited by German parliament member Hauchler and professor Kennedy, chair of International Security Studies at Yale and the author of numerous works, including Preparing for the Twenty-First Century (Random, 1993). The foundation "argues for a policy of global reform geared to the vision of a global community of responsibility . . . to overcome nation-state thinking . . . to prepare the way for a worldwide domestic politics." The volume is arranged in 18 topical chapters within five broader categories of "World Society," "World Peace," "World Economy," "World Ecology," and "World Culture." Topics range widely from living conditions, human rights, arms transfers, and work to atmosphere and climate, energy, religions, and new technologies. Appendixes include selected country statistics, world maps of poverty, a bibliography, and a subject index.

Global Trends contains numerous footnoted charts, graphs, tables, and maps. These items are both a strength and a weakness of the volume. They help the reader to visualize the issues presented, but in some cases following up the footnotes for further elucidation will be a challenge. An interesting chart of "The World's Major Languages, 1980^-92" is attributed to an unpublished manuscript by two researchers in Quebec, with no further clues to their affiliation or whereabouts. The chapter "New Technologies" includes a discussion of biotechnology in agriculture that features a chart comparing the "green revolution" with the bio-or "gene revolution." The assertions presented on the chart are controversial, representing an ideological slant rather than an incontrovertible set of facts.

Global Trends is a provocative polemical work that might best serve as a textbook for a college-level class in economics, global development, or peace studies. As a general reference, however, it is recommended only for large research collections.