When the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) got ready to publish its latest annual report, it chose for a title Globalism with a Human Face. The terms globalism and globalization are on everyone's lips these days: the process of globalization, according to every indicator we choose to use, is both unstoppable and moving fast.....

First, Fukuyama's end of history,then the assertion of American preeminence of Benjamin Barber's McDonald's bringing the threat of a counter-jihad; we now have Thomas Friedman's thesis of the rapidity of the Internet and financial transactions taking over the world; and just recently the cultural symbolism of American basketball creating an American goliath ripe for the aim of underdog David's slingshot; finally, in a delightful New York Times Arts piece, the observation of hip-hop music as a globalizing unity.

Thomas Friedman's new book [The Lexus and the Olive Tree] should he read by all who have an interest in global and/or international studies. Educators at all levels would find the book informative and perspective forming. Friedman's thesis is that the globalization and democratizing of finance, information and technology is the emerging defining system for the post-Cold War period.

Thomas Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree should be read by all global educators. His concepts-from the title metaphors to "fast world" and "slow world," "golden straitjacket" and "electronic herd," globalution" and "the golden arches theory of conflict prevention"-are powerful and Memorable....

Friedman may well have hit the nail right on the head. I doff my hat to him, yet I beg to differ in some respects. The issues of inequalities and inequities remaining to plague some developing countries, and the contrast with developed countries of the world, are surely going to make the world economic equation seem to be hanging "as a spider's web"a lure in the form of fabulous dreams about globalization. Is the web really a gateway for opportunities and progress for all.....

OBJECTIVES:

Students will :

• Analyze the forces that are likely to shape international relations in the 21st century.
• Identify the values and assumptions integral to the debate about the evolution of the international system.
• Clarify their own views on the future of international relations