The Global Enterprise

Searching for reliable knowledge about human behavior and social reality, and savoring the promise of generalizations and even universal laws, we often wish we could speak in languages other than our own and live in societies and cultures other than our own. Through the magic of film and sabbatical, we glimpse a little of that wider world. Now James D. Wright, Editor-in-Chief of the monumental International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Second Edition (2015), has provided a sampling of 25 original essays, each discussing a recent research article written by a non-U.S. scholar, based on non-U.S. data, and published in non-U.S. journals, and each summary is accompanied by Wright’s valuable context and insight. The result is an intellectual feast. A Baedeker to the global soul of social science. I will not again visit topic or country in Wright’s book without taking the relevant chapter.
Guillermina Jasso, Silver Professor and Professor of Sociology, New York University

The Global Enterprise is a truly global book that opens our horizons to what the world of good social sciences has got to offer. It is comprehensive, issue- and evidence-based, and concise. A book of this nature cannot be easily written, except by someone of Professor Wright’s superb calibre and vast editorial experience. I am most impressed by his masterly command of social scientific issues throughout the world and his straightforward language and witty writing that enable many larger lessons well learnt by any reader! Highly recommended.
Henry Yeung, Distinguished Professor, National University of Singapore
Jim Wright’s masterful global vision informs this collection of short, informative commentaries on current research by social scientists from around the world. Clearly the social science stage is no longer owned by scholars in just "the West." Social scientists located outside Euro-America are researching and writing about their own regions and providing insights beyond them. The world is a better place for their endeavors and for Wright’s efforts to bring that work to our attention.
Barbara D. Miller, Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs, The George Washington University

Drawing on his extensive knowledge of global scholarship networks, Jim Wright offers an insightful and panoramic view of international social science. In this very accessible, yet highly perceptive, book one can learn a great deal about the richness of social science analysis all over the globe - from the Filipino Remittances, to the Erased of Slovenia to the Public Health in Nigeria to the Renationalization in Contemporary Argentina and further afield. TheGlobal Enterprise is a little gem of a book that very successfully challenges the entrenched parochialism of the Western academic canon.
Siniša Maleševic, Professor of Sociology, University College Dublin