The Last Empires

This book is a forthright and novel examination of efforts to improve global governance over the last forty years. It looks at the effects of governance changes on people that have been marginalized by industrial progress and international conflict and the inability of national governments to meet the needs of global society.

Economics has long laid claims to providing the basis for global prosperity, but this promise has all to frequently been broken. Michel Foucault looked closely at economics and neoliberalism as a possible means for guiding modern governments to allow individuals to govern themselves and others. He focused on the evolution of social development as a consequence of many disciplines and biopolitical forces, but he never looked at his data from the perspective of economics alone. This book offers a Foucauldian interpretation of contemporary governance issues, such as global security, social cohesion, economic crisis and financialization, to the formidable problems that the world faces at the beginning of the 21st century.