ABSTRACT
The world has changed since the first edition of this book was published in 1989 - indeed 1989 itself was the beginning of one major set of changes, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist states of central and eastern Europe. Not only are the changes profound in themselves, so too is their effect on the ways in which people tend to see the world. Broadly speaking, many people (myself included) see the world far more in international and 'global' terms - in terms of global structures and processes and relations - than a decade ago. This certainly does not mean that the world has suddenly 'globalized' in the space of ten years, or that nation-states have suddenly ceased to have any significance. It is rather that globalizing tendencies which were already powerful in the 1980s and earlier look more important in 2000 than they did at the time.
