A broad ranging and accessible new introduction to debates about globalization and to the substantive evidence for its extent, distinctiveness, impact and implications for governance, politics and the state. Written by a leading authority it goes beyond a critique of the 'hyperglobalist' and 'business as usual' schools to provide a systematic and nuanced account of globalization as an important but uneven dynamic in the contemporary world - though one with strong mediations and countertendencies but also as a powerful ideological construction in its own right.