Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective, 5th Edition (Sociology for a New Century)

Explores development through historical narrative and examines the globalization/development paradox through in-depth case studies.

In his Fifth Edition of Development and Social Change: A Global Perspective, author Philip McMichael examines the project of globalization and its instabilities (climate, energy, food, financial crises) through the lens of development and its origins in the colonial project. The book continues to help students make sense of a complex world in transition and explains how globalization became part of public discourse.

Filled with case studies, this text makes the intricacies of globalization concrete, meaningful, and clear for students and moves them away from simple social evolutionary views, encouraging them to connect social change, development policies, global inequalities and social movements. The book challenges students to see themselves as global citizens whose consumption decisions have real social and ecological implications.

Key Features:

• a world-historical perspective that situates globalization in the declining fortunes of the postwar development project, and considers current global limits and possibilities

• a political perspective that views development and globalization as discursive practices managed by historic elite groupings, as mechanisms of power and world ordering

• an ecological perspective drawing attention to the environmental consequences of development and attempts to reintegrate social life in ecological cycles

• an emphasis on resistance and social movements as actors shaping the meaning and direction of these projects, in addition to building alternatives

• a series of case studies that allow in-depth examination of development/globalization dilemmas and paradoxes to interrupt the idea of a linear process.

New to the Fifth Edition:

• developmental impacts of the rise of the BRICS

• structural adjustment and new inequalities come to the global North

• ′de-growth′ philosophies

• the re-centering of agriculture in light of the food, energy and climate crises

• land-grabbing and biofuels

• green technologies and climate proofing

• transition towns and re-localization

• new democratic movements.