Globalization and the Race for Resources by Stephen G. Bunker; Paul S.

Ciccantell
Review by: Giovanni Arrighi
Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Jan., 2007), pp. 87-88
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20443689 .
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 Global Dynamics and Social Change 87

ontological claims would otherwise surely

have repudiated.
The study concludes with a chapter on GLOBAL
Simmel, for whom symbolic forms and soci
ological interpretation were serious issues.
DYNAMICS AND
The author rehearses some of the familiar SOCIAL CHANGE
discussion of processes and forms of socia
tion (Vergesellschaftung),but unfortunately
avoids pursuing the crucial distinction in Globalization and the Race for Resources, by
Simmel's work between forms of experienc Stephen G. Bunker and Paul S. Ciccantell.
ing (Erleben in his vocabulary) and forms of Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University
interaction (the consequential concept of Press, 2005. 263 pp. $55.00 cloth. ISBN:
Wechselwirkung). Wanderer focuses essen 0801882427.
tially on the former, but it is actually the lat
ter that has had such far-reaching and con
ARRIGHI
GIOVANNI
The Johns Hopkins University
tinuing reverberations in the social sciences,
serving to qualify the view that Simmel had
Stephen Bunker and Paul Ciccantell's Global
no more than a "formal" sociology. The re
ization and the Race for Resources is a book
vived interest in amodern Simmel has shown
of great originality and significance. Its cen
that there is indeed much more to Simmelian
tral thesis is that successive attempts to solve
sociology than formalism.
the contradiction between the rapid expan
Of all these thinkers, it was Simmel who
sion of social production and the slower ex
was both a sociologist and a philosopher, a
pansion of the natural production from
bridge between the two camps. He did in
which it draws matter and energy have been
deed correspond with Husserl, as Wanderer
the driving force behind the globalization of
mentions, a record published in 2005 in the
capitalism since the sixteenth century. The
Georg Simmel Gesamtausgabe, volume 22.
agencies of these attempts have been "na
But whether the relationship appears promis
tions" that successively sought and attained
ing may depend on how one reads his most
interesting letter, a series of recommenda world trade dominance through the use of
tions to Husserl in the spring of 1907 for technologies that enabled them to obtain
sightseeing in and around Florence, which privileged access to larger and more diversi
Simmel strikingly calls "the home of my soul, fied but more distant sources of matter and
in so far as any of us have a home at all" energy. In each case, world trade dominance
(GSG, vol. 22, p. 570). If philosophy is really was based on economies of scale that pro
homesickness, then what is sociology? For duced diseconomies of space that were
the interpretative approach to social life, the themselves resolved by the even greater
answer would surely be the path to finding economies of scale created by a new trade
our way home. dominant nation. "In order to implement
these economies of scale, nations competing
for trade dominance developed new and
more powerful technologies, financial institu
tions, and state systems domestically.
Abroad, they reorganized raw materials mar
kets and transport systems in ways that com
plemented their domestic innovations and
made them more powerful" (p. 224).
The underlying assumption is that the in
stitutions and activities involved in economic
development cannot function independently
of naturally given matter and space. "Tech
nologies that mediate between [nature] and
human actions and goals are socially created,
but they can only achieve the human goals
for which society invents and finances them

Contemporary Sociology 36, 1

88 Global Dynamics and Social Change

if they conform to the natural (i.e., biological, U.S. economic dominance than they do for
geological, locational, physical, and chemi Dutch or Japanese dominance. Similarly, the
cal) features of the raw materials they trans contention that the struggle to overcome the
form" (p. 11). While grounding "socio-logic" diseconomies of space of resource extraction
in "eco-logic," Bunker and Ciccantell reject has been a primary determinant of world in
any deterministic conception of the rise and equality is eminently plausible through most
demise of economically dominant nations. In of the twentieth century. But it is far less
their analysis, no single set of attributes, ac plausible when applied to the emerging
tions, or processes lead to trade dominance global dynamic.
and ever increasing globalization. Rather, Today, two closely related trends seem to
they seek to identify the necessary conditions be creating relations between industrial and
of their occurrence and the various ways in natural resource-rich countries that depart
which these conditions were met in different radically from those typical of the past half
historical and geographical contexts. millennium. One is the de-industrialization of
In doing this, they follow a two-pronged core regions and the industrialization of
research strategy. They first focus on a spe some peripheral regions of the global econo
cific place, the Amazon, as an extended his my; and the other is the emergence of still
torical case study especially suitable for the poor countries with huge peasant popula
analysis, not just of the local consequences of tions-first and foremost China and to a less
the extraction of natural resources on an ever er extent India-as the most dynamic centers
increasing scale, but also of the ecological, of global economic expansion. Bunker and
social, and financial conditions that made Ciccantell pay little or no attention to either
such an extraction possible. They then use tendency. Indeed, their entire construct is
and elaborate the hypotheses derived from based on the assumption that the agencies of
the observation of successive extractive the transformations they analyze are compar
economies in the Amazon to frame a com atively wealthy industrial countries account
parative historical analysis of the five na ing for a small minority of world population.
tions-Portugal, Holland, the United King Thus, they do not raise the crucial question
dom, the United States, and Japan-that suc of what happens to world inequality and
cessively rose to dominate world trade, as ecological destruction when this assumption
well as that of the Amazon, over the past six ceases to be valid. They nonetheless provide
centuries. The result is an empirically us with an excellent vantage point from
grounded theoretical construct that greatly which to address the question.
advances our understanding of globalization
as a long-term historical process and of the
causes of today's world inequality and un Globalization, Philanthropy, and Civil Society:
precedented ecological destruction. Equally Toward a New Political Culture in the Twenty
important, Bunker and Ciccantell open up a
First Century, edited by Soma Hewa and
new research agenda that seeks to overcome
Darwin H. Stapleton. New York, NY:
the traditional reluctance of the social sci
Springer, 2006. 227 pp. $89.95 cloth. ISBN
ences to problematize and theorize matter
0387261486.
and space.
Like all pioneering works, Globalization A. GR0NBJERG
KIRSTEN
and the Race for Resources does not always Indiana University
provide satisfactory answers to the questions kgronbj@indiana.edu
it raises. The thesis that finance, politics, and
other social forces function in close interac Globalization, Philanthropy, and Civil Soci
tion with economies of scale and disec ety is based on an invitational conference
onomies of space in natural resource extrac held in 2003 at the Rockefeller Archives Cen
tion is convincingly argued; but the stronger ter. As such, it has much to be commended,
thesis that finance, politics, and other social but also some significant limitations. Its pri
forces are all determined by capital's need for mary strength is the diversity of disciplinary
raw materials is less convincingly argued. In perspectives represented in the volume. The
any event, both theses appear to this reader ten chapters, grouped into four sections plus
towork better for the instances of British and an introduction, include contributions from

Contemporary Sociology 36, 1