This volume embraces exhaustively and competently the transdisciplinarily mutating field of Globalization Studies. It charts not only widely dislocated subfields (from health and sexuality through violence and crime to consumption and fan cultures) but also the permanently oscillating trade-off between the desirable and the repugnant, the cohesive and the destructive dimensions of globalization. It does so with a rare sense for the overlapping, often rhizomatic, and ultimately unpredictable character of globalization processes. The reader will discover that systematically exploring the several—and often mutually contradictory—facets of globalization coincides with demythologizing its meaning. Globalization is a much more complex phenomenon than just being a postmodern twist of the modern iron cage.Armando Salvatore, Professor of Global Religious Studies, McGill University, AustraliaThis book really understands the needs of global studies students and represents a major resource for scholars in many disciplines. Its range and scope mark it out as an exceptional work. The second edition is as sharp and up-to-date as it is possible to be. The Handbook provides students with all the necessary tools to study contemporary globalization, in all its complexity. This is some achievement. The book is by some distance the best of its kind.Chris Rumford, Professor of Political sociology and Global Politics, Royal Holloway, University of London