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The Sociology of Globalization by Luke Martell

Article  in  Political Studies Review · September 2013

DOI: 10.1111/1478-9302.12028_34

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Fabrício H. Chagas-Bastos
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BOOK REVIEWS
different cultural perspectives, which in the book seems
to amount primarily to publicising in the English lan-
guage literature the perspectives of little-known French
intellectuals: a narrow, if worthy, outcome. The Oxford
collection in contrast makes a concerted effort to
widen its focus, with the section on non-Western ways
of war providing chapters on Russian, Chinese and
Japanese perspectives. Another chapter surveys the
emerging powers of Brazil, China and India. Most
notably, the chapter on Japan is written by a retired
Japanese admiral and that on China by leading People’s
Liberation Army strategist Major-General Peng Guang
Qian, the latter quite a coup for the editors.
Ultimately, the value of The Ashgate Research Com-
panion to War is primarily limited to disseminating the
ideas of French thinkers to a wider, English-speaking
audience. However, if a comprehensive study of war
from different perspectives is the aim, then it is the
Oxford Handbook of War that achieves the task success-
fully. It is a fine primer on many, albeit not all, con-
temporary aspects of war, which will appeal to students
from both civilian and military worlds at all levels,
while also providing a valuable reference tool for even
the most seasoned of researchers.
Chris Rahman
(Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and
Security [ANCORS], University of Wollongong)
The Sociology of Globalization by Luke Martell.
Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010. 336pp., £61.75, ISBN
978 0 7456 3674 0
Although globalisation is not a new topic in the social
sciences, it has been a controversial subject over the
years. This becomes even more evident when globali-
sation deepens and develops to its contemporary phase,
in which the advance of telecommunications, democ-
racy, culture and the financial, economic and migration
flows are interconnected. Luke Martell’s book is an
answer to the demand for a multifaceted and closer-
to-societies look.
The author’s main concern in this work is funda-
mentally to rescue the connection of political science
and economics with sociology, by creating a reliable
bridge through which the studies of the latter, when
applied to international relations, can acquire proper
consistency. In other words, what the author mainly
seeks is to frame the great themes of international
© 2013 The Authors. Political Studies Review © 2013 Political Studies Association
Political Studies Review: 2013, 11(3)
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413
relations within sociological aspects, namely migrations,
culture, economics, war and also the organisation of the
international system itself. Therefore such an approach
may provide the necessary background for understand-
ing these topics in a broad sense.
The way the book is organised is useful both for
those who have never had contact with a sociological
approach to international relations and for researchers
aiming to understand which are the state-of-the-art
paths of debate adopted in this field of investigation.
The division of the chapters is remarkable (thirteen
in total), as it allows a focus on each of the issues and
makes a connection between them. Thus the thesis of
the book is continuous rather than fragmentary as
might be found in a textbook. Through a robust bib-
liographic review, Martell also manages to articulate the
main authors and their themes within the sociological
spectrum, without losing sight of its peculiarities (the
chapters referring to migrations, culture and the rela-
tion between democracy and justice deserve a special
highlight).
Contrary to what is usually found in books related
to the sociology of IR, Martell is not extreme at any
point. He provides balanced analyses of all the themes
discussed. Moreover, while not to say that his analysis
lacks originality, one can consider that his moderate
pessimism provides the book’s tone and, precisely for
this reason, he turns it into an instigating guide for a
multidisciplinary area of international relations.
Fabrício Henricco Chagas Bastos
(University of São Paulo)
Routledge Handbook of Diplomacy and Statecraft
by B. J. C. McKercher (ed.). Abingdon: Routledge,
2011. 528pp., £115.00, ISBN 9780415781107
This volume, edited by B.J.C. McKercher, gathers a
significant collection of texts on key issues of diplo-
macy such as context, great, middle or developing
powers, international organisations and military alli-
ances, economy, conflict and cooperation. The volume
aims to provide a better understanding of contempo-
rary diplomatic practices in the context of the twenty-
first century, starting from the idea that great powers
always seek to defend their strategic advantages and
secure their position in the international arena (p. xv).
This is to be done through non-contentious means by
giving a comparative time and space to all issues