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Rating: 
Summary: It Changed my whole view of the world
Review: "There is an alternative" gives and excellent analysis of globalisation from an ecofeminist/anti-colonial perspective. Most of the contributors have been influenced or inspired by the work of Maria Mies and the subsistence perspective that she and her colleagues have articulated. While there are so many analyses of globalisation these days, the ecofeminist perspective yields numerous new insights. For example, see Claudia von Werlhof's essay "Losing Faith in Progress: Capitalist Patriarchy as an 'Alchemical System'". More importantly this book clearly demonstrates alternatives to globalisation that exist and avoids merely theorising. This is not surprising given that many of the contributors are leading activist-intellectuals such as Maria Mies, Vandana Shiva and Helena Norberg-Hodge. This book is essential reading to both understand the process of globalisation and to learn more about some of the alternatives that are already in practice.
Rating: 
Summary: Round up the usual suspects
Review: Ah,yes. It's all the fault of those nasty patriarchal corporations (again). And the solution is so obvious! Live like a third-world peasant! I love it when first-world academics who enjoy all of the priveledges of high technology (medicine, air travel, food surpluses) advise others to live at the subsistence level. How terribly condescending to all of the REAL third-world peasants who desperately want to escape the subsistence-level life...the ones who vote with their feet by immigrating in hordes to first world, hi-tech capitalist countries. If the authors weren't so deadly serious, this book could be mistaken for a satire.
Rating:
Summary: Round up the usual suspects
Review: I didn't read this book. I don't intend to do so. The point of the book is pretty clear from the title. Obviously, I can't do a point-by-point refutation of the work but I can make a couple of points just based on what I see in the reviews and such. That is, when you attack Corporations, you are attacking PEOPLE. Yes, a corporation is a legal seperate entity but, in practice, it is not just a grouping of random pieces of paper, a corporation is made of people. Corporations are groups of individuals working together. They can be everything from a micro-corporations based on good ideas thought up by two enterprising women in Africa to Cisco Systems, which employs about 30,000 people around the world and is of primary importance to this life-enhancing and extending technology we call the Internet. Also, this book obviously advocates for people living like animals on the land. That is what "Subsistence" refers to, after all. That is sick. If one is truly a humanist, than they should be advocating for enhancing and extending the lives of people around the globe. As far as the environment goes...guess what, there is a corporation that is about to put all the oil companies out of business. In ten years, oil will be a lubricant and very little more. Then, where are you environmental complaints going to be directed? Remember its a CORPORATION that is going to do this.
Rating: 
Summary: Corporations are PEOPLE
Review: I didn't read this book. I don't intend to do so. The point of the book is pretty clear from the title. Obviously, I can't do a point-by-point refutation of the work but I can make a couple of points just based on what I see in the reviews and such. That is, when you attack Corporations, you are attacking PEOPLE. Yes, a corporation is a legal seperate entity but, in practice, it is not just a grouping of random pieces of paper, a corporation is made of people. Corporations are groups of individuals working together. They can be everything from a micro-corporations based on good ideas thought up by two enterprising women in Africa to Cisco Systems, which employs about 30,000 people around the world and is of primary importance to this life-enhancing and extending technology we call the Internet. Also, this book obviously advocates for people living like animals on the land. That is what "Subsistence" refers to, after all. That is sick. If one is truly a humanist, than they should be advocating for enhancing and extending the lives of people around the globe. As far as the environment goes...guess what, there is a corporation that is about to put all the oil companies out of business. In ten years, oil will be a lubricant and very little more. Then, where are you environmental complaints going to be directed? Remember its a CORPORATION that is going to do this.
Rating:
Summary: It Changed my whole view of the world
Review: I've always wondered why there is such an imbalance of wealth in the world and why environmental destruction continues despite our knowledge of its eventual consequences. I've wondered why there are so many wars in the third world and why Americans continue living in luxury while other parts of the world are dying of hunger. This book shows a completely different perspective of the world and points to corporations as the cause of most of the world's problems. This book shows how people all over the world are defying the present corporate economic system in order to give control of the land back to the people and take the power away from corporations. well, I was unfamiliar with most of the ideas presented in this book, reading it was a life changing experience. I would highly recommend the book to anyone unfamiliar with the subsistence world perspective.
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