janthonytucson's review against another edition
5.0
This book is a remarkable work of scholarship. This may be one of those most transformative books I have ever read and one of the most difficult. Sassen’s prose is difficult and after a hundred and fifty pages or so I was able to finally lock in and I am glad I stuck it out. You need an advanced level of reading to comprehend this. It is equivalent to reading journal articles and is written for graduate and doctorate level reading comprehension. The language used is common in journal articles, but not seen outside that very specialized style of writing. If I was not in graduate school right now and exposed to this style of writing on a daily basis, this would have been impossible to get through.
The way she explicates the global logics of our current neoliberal financial order where global cities act as differentiated sites of denationalization and her framing of citizenship as ‘rights bearing’ individuals is incredible. You are able to build a system, or a framework, in which to analyze the complex set of institutions and dynamics at play currently. I have a much richer and dynamic view of the world after reading this.
I think the third section of this book is the weakest as it was written while the internet as we know it today was still forming and many of the current power dynamics were not even present at that time, however she did predict many of the logics upon which we operate today.
The way she explicates the global logics of our current neoliberal financial order where global cities act as differentiated sites of denationalization and her framing of citizenship as ‘rights bearing’ individuals is incredible. You are able to build a system, or a framework, in which to analyze the complex set of institutions and dynamics at play currently. I have a much richer and dynamic view of the world after reading this.
I think the third section of this book is the weakest as it was written while the internet as we know it today was still forming and many of the current power dynamics were not even present at that time, however she did predict many of the logics upon which we operate today.
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