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Prés. de l'éd.: "While refuting contemporary fashionable discourse on 'History from below', which is based on cultural determinism, the author of the present volume urges scholars to use their own innate creativity (as human agency) collectively to build an alternative theoretical framework that can open up the possibility of creating an alternative state of being and alternative kinds of societies. While suggesting one of many possible alternatives, the author has attempted to reinstate in the present volume the notion of 'human agency' as human being's innate capacity for creativity, which is closely related to the concept of 'humaneness'. Author believes that such interpretation will open up the possibility of developing a new theoretical framework that will be devoid of binaries such as, traditional/modern, core/periphery, progressive/backward, national/global. Based on these ideas, the present volume is an attempt to show one of many possibilities of writing a history of the world from an alternative perspective derived from the experiences of the social formations, cultural formations and class struggles in India. The focus on "India" is important (not merely as a local history, or colonial history) because it represents the historical experiences of one billion plus people with all possible historical, political, economic, and cultural scenarios and its interactions with many other societies over time. Author hopes that suggestions hypothesized in this volume might help in writing histories -- everywhere -- of women, working people, oppressed people, oppressed societies, as well as of oppressive societies from the vantage point of their own societies and their interactions with other societies without using binary terms. Such history writing will allow oppressed people and oppressed societies to break away from the prevailing notion of 'inevitable fate' about their present miserable condition and hopeless future choices, as they are made to believe about the inevitability of 'globalization', about the so called 'development', and their consequences."

Putting globalization into a historical perspective, Went convincingly demonstrates that it is not an unavoidable process, but one that the Left can successfully mobilise against.

This book transcends current debate on government regulation by lucidly outlining how regulations can be a fruitful combination of persuasion and sanctions. The regulation of business by the United States government is often ineffective despite being more adversarial in tone than in other nations. The authors draw on both empirical studies of regulation from around the world and modern game theory to illustrate innovative solutions to this problem. Their ideas include an argument for the empowerment of private and public interest groups in the regulatory process and a provocative discussion of how the government can support and encourage industry self-regulation.

The implications of globalization for labour are more often asserted than analyzed. This collection, and its companion volume The Global Economy, National States and the Regulation of Labour edited by by Paul Edwards and Tony Elger, seek to remedy this deficiency by presenting contemporary research on the relationship between the globalization of production and the regulation of labour. It examines the relations between specific pattens of labour control (production regimes) and approaches to national labour (regulatory regimes). The contributors assess the nature and form of labour resistance and accommodation across a range of manufacturing industries in different national contexts.