World Poverty: The Roots of Global Inequality and the Modern World System. This item is unavailable.World Poverty: The Roots of Global Inequality and the Modern World System

World Poverty provides a general summary of world poverty at the beginning of the 21st century, then an introduction to modern world system theory and its attempts to explain world poverty and inequality. Separate chapters contain an overview of poverty in Africa, Latin America, and then Asia. Remaining chapters offer explanations for why some countries in the world (mostly in Asia) have become richer and reduced the ranks of their poor through ties with the global economy while others have not. Kerbo provides extensive evidence for why the nature of the state in developing countries is the most important factor in stagnation or even economic development with poverty reduction. But, in contrast to previous research and new statements by the World Bank, he has created a model attempting to explain why and how some countries have “good governance” and others do not. The book concludes with what we now know about world poverty and what does and does not work to reduce it.

Harold R. Kerbo is a professor of sociology at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Professor Kerbo is also the founder and Director of the Pacific Rim Group at Cal Poly, an organization which coordinates research and educational programs in Pacific Rim countries. In addition to other teaching experience in Tokyo, Professor Kerbo was a Fulbright Professor during 1988/1989 at Hiroshima University, as well as a visiting professor in the Law Faculty at Hiroshima Shudo University. During 1991, Professor Kerbo was a visiting professor at the University of Duisburg, Germany, and returned to the Dusseldorf area during 1992 and 1993 as a research professor conducting research on employee relations in Japanese corporations located in Germany. In 1990 Professor Kerbo received a Fulbright-Hays grant to study at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, and for several months during 1994 to 1996 directed a research project on employee relations in American and Japanese corporations with operations in Thailand. During 1996 he was also a visiting professor in the MBA Program at the Prince of Songkla University in Thailand. During the winter term of 1999 professor Kerbo was a visiting professor at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. And during the fall term of 1999 he will be a visiting professor at the University of Wales. Professor Kerbo has published five books and numerous articles on the subjects of social stratification, comparative societies, corporate structure, and modern Japan. He is the author of Sociology: Social Structure and Social Conflict (MacMillan, 1989), and along with John A. McKinstry, the author of Who Rules Japan?: The Inner-Circles of Economic and Political Power (Greenwood/Praeger, 1995). Professor Kerbo is creator and general editor of the McGraw-Hill Comparative Societies Series which will include books on 12 countries.