The World: A Beginner’s Guide

Göran Therborn is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Cambridge and Co-Director Emeritus of the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study at Uppsala.

What is the world of the 21st century like now that the centrality of the West is no longer given? How were the societies and cultures of today's world together with their interconnections forged, and what is driving human society in our times? In short, what is the state of the world today as we enter the second decade of the 21st century?
This is the first book which deals with planetary human society as whole. It is a beginner's guide to the world after the West and after globalization, compact, portable, and jargon-free. It is aimed at everybody who, even with experience, has kept a beginner's curiosity of the world, to everybody who does not know everything they want to know about it, about the good, the evil, and the salvation of the world.
It lays bare the socio-cultural geology of the world, its major civilizations, its historical waves of globalization, its family-sex-gender systems, and its pathways to modernity.
It outlines the dynamics of the world, its basic drives, the contours of its most important global and sub-global processes.
It presents the big team players on the world stage, populous as well as rich countries, missions and movements as well corporations and cities.
It traces the life-courses of men and women on all the continents, from their birth and childhood to their old age, and their funeral.

- Written by an author of international stature, very well-known in the worlds of sociology and politics and in left-of-centre politics.

Prologue.

Introduction: Humankind and Its World.

I. Why We Are Who We Are: A Socio-Cultural Geology of Today s World.

The Rock of Civilizations.

The Sinic.

The Indic.

The West Asia.

The European.

The sub-Saharan African.

The Family-Sex-Gender Systems.

Sediments of Six Waves of Globalization.

Modernity and Its Pathways.

A Humanity of Multi-Layered Cultural Agglomerations.

II. World Dynamics: The Drivers of Humankind.

Modes of Livelihood: The Down and Up of Capitalism, and the Rest.

Population Ecology and the Ending of Modern Ecological Emancipation.

The Ethnic and Religious Dynamic of Recognition and Respect.

Politics of Collective Power: State Apotheosis.

Culture: Modernism Globalized, Accelerated, and Chastened.

Channels of Operation.

Global Processes.

1. Flows.

Trade.

Capital.

People.

Information.Matter.

2.Global-national entanglements.

3. Global Action.

3. Global Action.

National Processes.

Performance.

Population movements (demography).

Distributions: Global, National, Sub-National.

The Growth and Resilience of Nation- States.

III. The Current World Stage.

Scenography: the World Space.

The big players.

1. The Uneven Field of Nation-States.

2. Corporations.

3. Missions and Movements.

IV. Our Time on Earth: Courses of Life.

Birth and Survival.

Childhood.

Schooling.

Labour.

Youth: Sex and Culture.

A Sexual Geography of the Young World.

Marriage and the end of youth.

Adulthood.

Where to Live: The Urbanization of the World.

Making A Living: Classes of Work.

Class Formations of 21st Century Capitalism.

Making A Living: The Rich and the Poor.

Adult Enjoyment : Leisure and Consumption.

The Ruling & the Non-Ruling Generation.

Old age.

Retirement and Pension.

Living Arrangements.

An Ideal 21st Century Life-Course.

Death and After.

Conclusion : How We Got Here, and Where Are We Going?

How Did We Get Here?

Where Are We Going?

Notes.

Bibliography.

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