The Blackwell Companion to Globalization

Introduction

GEORGE RITZER

While this essay constitutes an introduction to this volume, it is being written after all the chapters have been submitted (and revised, sometimes several times) and the introductions to each of the three parts of the book have been completed. It is actually more of an epilogue than an introduction; a reflection on the chapters in the volume and, more importantly, on what they have to tell us about the state and quality of our knowledge and understanding of one of the most important phenomena of our times – globalization.

One of the points that is almost always made about the study of globalization is how contested almost everything is, including the definition of globalization itself. In terms of the latter, it is interesting how many authors of the chapters to follow found it necessary to define globalization, often in the first paragraph or so of the chapter. That act indicates, I think, that there is no consensus on the definition and each of the authors who offered one wanted to make something clear that they felt was not clear or agreed-upon.

If the need to define globalization indicated a lack of consensus, most of the definitions proffered used similar ideas and demonstrated more consensus than is usually assumed (including by the authors represented here). Among the terms usually included in the definitions offered were, in order of frequency, speed and time (accelerating, rapidly developing etc.), processes and flows, space (encompassing ever ...