We wanted this to be called The Political Economy of Empire but were overruled by the publisher.

This collection of essays arose from a seminar on globalization hosted by the Transnational Institute (TNI). The discussion soon polarised into three camps. The first camp said globalization was rolling over us, and we had to organise to fight it. The second said globalization was inevitable, and we had to deal with it.

The third camp, essentially Boris and I, said call it what you like, but whatever it was, it was disintegrating.  That produced this book.

There was a kind of ghost camp, influenced by Hindess and Cutler, that said it never happened anyhow so we should not even use the word ‘globalization’. This view was not represented in the seminar, but we were sympathetic to it. We agreed that it was just another word for Imperialism, dolled up as an inevitable product of history

We then started working with Radhika Desai, and the rest is history.