This is a novel account of social change that supplants conventional understandings of society' and presents a sociology that takes as its main unit of analysis flows through time and across space. Developing a comparative analysis of the UK and US, the new Germany and Japan, Lash and Urry show how restructuration after organized capitalism has its basis in increasingly reflexive social actors and organizations. The consequence is not only the much-vaunted postmodern condition' but also a growth in reflexivity. In exploring this new reflexive world, the authors argue that today's economies are increasingly ones of signs - information, symbols, images, desire - and of space, where both signs and social subjects - refugees, financiers, tourists and "fl[ci]aneurs " - are mobile over ever greater distances at ever greater speeds.

In this thought-provoking new book, Anthony Smith analyses key debates between historians and social scientists on the role of nations and nationalism in history. In a wide-ranging analysis of the work of historians, sociologists, political scientists and others, he argues that there are three key issues which have shaped debates in this field: first, the nature and origin of nations and nationalism; second, the antiquity or modernity of nations and nationalism; and third, the role of nations and nationalism in historical, and especially recent, social change. Anthony Smith provides an incisive critique of the debate between modernists, perennialists and primordialists over the origins, development and contemporary significance of nations and nationalism. Drawing on a wide range of examples from antiquity and the medieval epoch, as well as the modern world, he develops a distinctive ethnosymbolic account of nations and nationalism. This important book by one of the world’s leading authorities on nationalism and ethnicity will be of particular interest to students and scholars in history, sociology and politics.

In Spaces of Culture an international group of scholars examines the implications of questions such as: What is culture? What is the relationship between social structure and culture in a globalized and networked world? Do critical perspectives still apply, or does the speed and complexity of cultural production demand new forms of analysis? They explore the key themes in social theory: the nation state; the city; modernity and reflexivity; post-Fordism and the spatial logic of the informational city. The contributors go on to analyze the public sphere, questioning the reductive representation of technology as a form of instrumentality, and demonstrating how new technologies can offer new spaces of culture. This analysis of public space is essential to an understanding of issues like global citizenship and multicultural human rights.

The present crisis of capitalism has a history. A history of the private accumulation of wealth through property regimes which allow increasing commodification and the privatisation of resources: from land to knowledge and even to life itself. Understanding that history may allow us to imagine alternatives after Capital which are no longer private but common. After Capital explores this history, showing how the economy is linked to environmental damage, climate change, resource depletion, and to massive inequality. It takes the reader from liberalism to neoliberalism, from climate change to the Anthropocene, and shows how this history is inextricably the history of colonialism. It is a rich and detailed narrative of capitalism over the last 200 years, that explains its texture and its neoliberal endgame. This discussion frames speculation on what postcapitalist societies could be, with regimes of private accumulation replaced by a politics and ethics of a democratic and ecologically- grounded Commons.

Design is central to every service or good produced, sold and consumed. Manufacturing and service companies located in high cost locations increasingly find it difficult to compete with producers located in countries such as India and China. Companies in high-cost locations either have to shift production abroad or create competitive advantage through design, innovation, brand and the geographic distribution of tasks rather than price. Design Economies and the Changing World Economy provides the first comprehensive account of the relationship between innovation, design, corporate competitiveness and place. Design economies are explored through an analysis of corporate strategies, the relationship between product and designer, copying and imitation including nefarious learning, design and competitiveness, and design-centred regional policies. The design process plays a critical role in corporate competitiveness as it functions at the intersection between production and consumption and the interface between consumer behaviour and the development and design of products. This book focuses on firms, individuals, as well as national policy, drawing attention to the development of corporate and nation based design strategies that are intended to enhance competitive advantage. Increasingly products are designed in one location and made in another. This separation of design from the place of production highlights the continued development of the international division of labour as tasks are distributed in different places, but blended together to produce design-intensive branded products. This book provides a distinctive analysis of the ways in which companies located in developed market economies compete on the basis of design, brand and the geographic distribution of tasks. The text contains case studies of major manufacturing and service companies and will be of valuable interest to students and researchers interested in Geography, Economics and Planning.

Discusses the economics and politics of globalization, examining the relationship between the global and the local

′Robotham offers here a clear-headed exposé of the limits of classical liberalism in the face of world production today. His theme is both urgent and iconoclastic. There is an unusual clarity about the exposition and a drive that comes from passionate engagement combined with long experience, reading and reflection′ - Keith Hart, Goldsmiths College, London In Culture, Society and Economy, Don Robotham examines the failure of recent social theory to grasp the problems of globalization and the emergence of corporate monopoly capital, and sets out his own argument for a radical solution. He argues that the neglect of economics by both cultural studies and social theory has weakened the ability to develop viable alternatives to present day capitalist globalization. With deep awareness of, and reference to, current events and contemporary trends, the author presents a detailed critique of: - cultural studies, in particular Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy; - Giddens′ theory of ′risk society′; - Scott Lash and John Urry′s ′economies of signs and space′; - Manuel Castells′ theory of ′network society′. The final chapters make a unique argument that the solution to the problems of globalization lies in more globalization rather than adopting an anti-globalization or ′localization′ position. Don Robotham proposes more effective centralized institutions for governing the world economy, in other words - world government.