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Book Review
| The New Geography of Global Income Inequality. By GLENN FIREBAUGH. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003. 257 pp. $49.95 (cloth).
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This book weaves together several years of work by Glenn Firebaugh, professor of sociology and demography, on a topic that remains contested among global experts. It offers an empirical analysis of recent trends in global income patterns and seeks to claim a higher ground in the current debate on global income inequality. The core argument of the book is that, contrary to conventional wisdom, global income inequality between countries is now decreasing compared to income inequality within nations. To support this position, Firebaugh provides an in-depth discussion of global data sources as well as technical discussion of how he believes it is best to measure and synthesize key demographic indicators. If you thrive on technical and empirical discussions that are based upon complex demographic abstractions and quantitative evidence, you will likely be interested in this thoughtful analysis. If your global interest is focused on interpretive frameworks or the implicit social, historical, and geographical questions embedded within assessments of inequality, you will likely be less impressed with this book. |
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As a thoughtful and seasoned demographer, Firebaugh approaches this question as an empirical enterprise that will set the facts straight about trends in global income inequality. He starts his global analysis by setting up what he terms the "new geography" hypothesis. His very brief global overview highlights the key features in the rise of income disparities over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. According to Firebaugh, global income disparities were fueled by the industrial revolution and resulted in the increasing income inequality between nations during the past two centuries that has been widely discussed in the literature. Firebaugh argues that what is pivotal about the world today is the shift in this global trend whereby the rising importance of within-nation income inequality and declining importance of between-nation income inequality has resulted in a historic shift in tide of global income and thus has produced what he calls a new geography. |
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