Globalization is fright

In everyday speech, the word is most commonly used by business people when asking for tax benefits, by the left when asking for protection of jobs and by the right when it wants to close the boundaries. Until a few years ago, international cooperation forums were able to keep this "beast" empty. In fact, globalization benefits utilized so that large parts of the world grew out of poverty, took care of each other and got to participate in a healthy competition.

This is no longer the case. Now only industries except tax survive – as we see with our own oil and shipping industry as well as GAFAs (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon) – where profits do not contribute to the community. Communication technology and climate change have made it impossible for totalitarian regimes to silence people's cries for freedom, with the provisional exception of China.

versatile

In the post-war period, organized society has gained momentum. It will be slow, too slow, many will say, turn around the way we collect taxes and create jobs. In addition, a huge range of cross-border collaborative forums have emerged, which in practice have become arenas for policy development with enormous implications for how we organize society. There are arenas for medicine, debt, aviation security, climate – everything between heaven and earth. The big vacuum is within populism and right-wing extremism – these are currents no institution can cope with. "On the net, there is a power vacuum, where the most intensely convinced most easily win," he says Dag Herbjørnsrud in the book globalization. The time has come to understand, deal with and cope with the multifaceted phenomenon – something this book attempts. Glory to the author for grabbing hold of Fjordman's obscure and destructive notions of reality and highlighting our great, international strategists in the field: Bjørnson, Welhaven, Nansen and Garborg.

Responsibility for the past

Dag Herbjørnsrud's book helps to give us knowledge of the timelessness and complexity of globalization. He ties all the threads together – from the events of world history, philosophers, thinkers, warriors and ideologues. Finally! I think – here's the ammunition against today's popular antiglobalists, whether it's Noble scholar himself, Asle Toje, Brexit defender Nigel Farage, or presidential candidate Donald Trump. The quote from Professor Emeritus Trond Berg Eriksen is indicative of what the book wants to achieve: "My point is that we as professionals are responsible for the adventures of the past that we carry on – and not least for the historical analogies we let pass uncommented." takes Herbjørnsrud seriously and should have great credit for. The question is whether he goes for thorough and lose many readers along the way.

Finally! I think – here's the ammunition against today's popular antiglobalists, whether it's Asle Toje, Nigel Farage or Donald Trump.

I am genuinely delighted when I realize that this is a textbook – that all high school students in Norway should have the chance to become acquainted with the broad and complex but constructive understanding of a concept that has existed since time immemorial.

The problem is that the few who are able to explain the complexity of our time only write for a very small layer of the population. A layer that most often already understands and does not need further information. Few have the power to write about Globalisation in a way that captures something other than those who unilaterally point to the negative sides and reinforce the populist notion that the phenomenon is the root of all evil. OECD reports and parliamentary reports can never compete with conspiratorial fiction in the best narrative style.

There are arenas for medicine, debt, aviation security, climate – everything between heaven and earth. The big vacuum is within populism and right-wing extremism – these are currents no institution can cope with.

heavily

The lion's share of globalization gives the impression of being written by a sample. I myself had to read the first few chapters several times to understand what the message was – how it connected. I imagined how the professors smiled over threads stretched between Mercato's world atlas and today's Google map. Have to believe what is the purpose? Is this a fun curiosity? Here the author will surely sigh and shake my head because I do not see the value. I don't think most 15-17-year-olds will either.

These parts of the book work only for their purpose. Hasn't author and publisher brought Stiglitz 'and Toje's easy-to-read, populist, narrow anecdotes about how bad things are going? Should we expect ordinary teenagers to be shaped by "multidisciplinary perspectives on people's ideas and conceptual worlds in the humanities, natural sciences or social sciences – both past and present"?

The question is whether textbooks have to be impossible to understand by normal reading. Is the goal to give the learned exercise in explaining quasi-original representations of simple concepts and societal features? It reminds me a little when I have to explain my own reformulation of children's own activities, and is met with: "But, Dad, that's what I've been saying all along!"

In several places it may seem like globalization is written more to satisfy the jury of the Cultural Council to secure purchases and profits, than to encourage young Snapchat users to put away their mobile phones and become familiar with the most important political phenomenon of our time.

tells Art

Of course, that doesn't have to be the case. And Herbjørnsrud proves it with brilliance in the chapter on Norway's international strategists: "From Snorre to Rabinowitz". Here the author shows that he has mastered the art of storytelling. He gives us historical contexts, brings out completely unknown and fascinating little secrets. We are entertained, proud and want more.

This is the Barry White song that comes after hours of techno music at the nightclub. Finally, we can swing loose on the dance floor and feel the rhythm: “When Wergeland in the May days of 1839 lay on his couch in Greenland and finally smoked their tobacco, he suddenly came to their message of public relations. He immediately began his proposal to the Storting. In June 1839, Wergeland submitted its first proposal to amend the Constitution's section 2 to allow Jews access to Norway. Or Ibsen, who in a letter to his poet friend Bjørnstärn Bjørnson tells about how he in the Vatican was called to write his breakthrough piece Brand. Or about the friendship between Arne Garborg and an Indian philosopher who met on a mountain top. Yes, it is simple, but also effective. In a captivating and easy-to-understand way, Herbjørnsrud makes the great strategists available to us small readers. Just such a high school textbook should be.

Wrong way

Herbjørnsrud should be honored because he dares to address the difficult issues. He is not afraid to look into and demystify Fjordman's dangerous thinking. But he should be criticized for making things easy. The editor should have asked him to prioritize – and rather write a trilogy that could give the reader the opportunity to hang out. Now playing globalization the ball straight into the opposing team's half; it is adapted to a small, select elite that lives far from the realities of most people.