Williamsburg Regional Library

To govern the globe, world orders and catastrophic change, Alfred W. McCoy

eng

Include bibliographic references (pages 325-409) and index

portraitsmapsillustrations

index present

non fiction

To govern the globe

bibliography

1243968993

Alfred W. McCoy

world orders and catastrophic change

"During the long centuries of Iberian and British imperial rule, the quest for new forms of energy led to the development of the colonial sugar plantation as a uniquely profitable kind of commerce. In a time when issues of race and social justice have arisen with pressing urgency, the book explains how the plantation's extraordinary profitability relied on a production system that literally worked the slaves to death, creating an insatiable appetite for new captives that made the African slave trade a central feature of modern capitalism for over four centuries. After surveying past centuries roiled by imperial wars, national revolutions, and the struggle for human rights, the closing chapters use those hard-won insights to peer through the present and into the future. By rendering often-opaque environmental science in lucid prose, the book explains how climate change and changing world orders will shape the life opportunities for younger generations, born at the start of this century, during the coming decades that will serve as the signposts of their lives -- 2030, 2050, 2070, and beyond." --, Inside book jacket flap

Empires and world orders -- The Iberian age -- Empires of commerce and capital -- Britannia rules the waves -- Pax Americana -- Beijing's world system -- Climate change in the twenty-first century

adult