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GOOD Books: The Foreign Perspective on Globalization

Novels that tell the story of global connections from an international perspective

Kristy Pyke
By Kristy PykeFeb 15, 2012
Kristy Pyke
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Everyone is talking about how we have just entered the "global age." But globalization is not a new concept. Ask authors from Liberia, Algeria, South Africa, South America, the French Caribbean, or the Czech Republic, and they will tell you how globalization has affected their countries for centuries.

Here, we highlight novels that are both entertaining and educational. Now that America is on the international scene as a player rather than an owner, we have a lot of catching up to do.

booksinternationalfictionglobalizationgood books

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I have a pretty terrible memory for important things—for example, even though I tried to savor every second of proposing to my wife, most of that nuance has faded into the ether. (What was she wearing? No clue.) But music is some kind of portal into the minutiae of my past—the kind of charming, everyday details I probably could have accessed through journaling.

For whatever reason, I can vividly recall listening to specific albums on particular road trips or walks around town: One Saturday afternoon during college, I strolled from my childhood home over to a nearby neighborhood while playing Gentle Giant’s Medieval-tinged 1972 prog masterpiece, Octopus, for the first time. New sights, strange new sounds. Around that same time, I ambled around a local park while cranking The New Pornographers’ 2007 indie-rock classic Challengers—it was late August, and I felt that particularly bittersweet "back to school in the fall" feeling. When I listen to those songs today, I still feel it.

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Mark Hamill was asked if Luke Skywalker is gay and had the perfect response

A debate among Star Wars fans has resurfaced online after a recent tweet from William Shatner, star of the original Star Trek TV series and films. It revolves around Mark Hamill, the actor who played Luke Skywalker in the storied sci-fi fantasy. In a 2016 interview, Hamill shared that he had a simple question that was asked of him by many fans: Is Luke Skywalker gay? Hamill gave an amazing response.

“Fans are writing and ask all these questions, ‘I’m bullied in school… I’m afraid to come out.’ They say to me, ‘Could Luke be gay?’ I’d say it is meant to be interpreted by the viewer. If you think Luke is gay, of course he is. You should not be ashamed of it. Judge Luke by his character, not by who he loves.”

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When Twin Peaks premiered back in 1990, there were many reasons to grow obsessed with this surreal, soapy murder-mystery—was any other show taking you into dream worlds filled with noir-jazz and reversed dialogue and eerie red curtains? But you probably kept coming back because Kyle MacLachlan, amid all the strangeness, imbued Agent Cooper with a rich humanity. You didn’t always understand him, but you still felt like he could teach you something.

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Some current college students welcome our A.I. overlords, especially when it comes to writing up term papers. ChatGPT has become a popular way for many students to cut corners when typing up essays, to the point where some barely write anything at all aside from the prompt. However, a study is showing that ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence programs aren't fooling any college professors and can expose students who are slacking off.

A published international study is showing that college professors can tell which essays are genuinely written by students versus ones that are compiled and cooked up by ChatGPT. The researchers at University of East Anglia and other universities that participated in the study analyzed 145 essays written by British university students and 145 essays written by ChatGPT with both batches writing about the same topics. What they have found is that while A.I. and large language models (L.L.M.s) wrote with proper grammar and were academically coherent, all of those essays lacked engagement techniques that are typically used by humans.

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The Bee Gees are rightly remembered, first and foremost, for dominating the disco era. Their work on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack is unimpeachable, from the sidewalk-strutting "Stayin’ Alive" to the tender balladry of "How Deep Is Your Love." But for fans unfamiliar with their earlier work, it’s often shocking to learn about the brother-trio’s other musical phases, including psychedelic-pop and folky soft-rock.

One excellent showcase of that range dates back to August 10, 1973, when they played a stripped-down acoustic medley of five Beatles classics on late-night show The Midnight Special. It was an interesting (and perhaps savvy) promotional choice: The band’s 11th and most recent LP, that year’s Life in a Tin Can, earned middling reviews and below-average sales, only reaching No. 69 on the Billboard 200. Perhaps looking back to The Fab Four—who’d broken up in 1970—was a safer bet than their single "Saw a New Morning," which petered out at No. 94 on the Hot 100.

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Few rock stars know how to build mystique like Jack White—from playing super obscure vintage guitars to color-coding his various musical projects. The coolest example dates back to 2004, when he recorded a single, pressed 100 vinyl copies, and hid them all inside random pieces of furniture.

Before we dive in, let’s tackle some backstory. Prior to his music career, White worked as a professional upholsterer in his native Detroit—first as a teenage apprentice, assisting friend and future bandmate Brian Muldoon. White opened his own shop, Third Man Upholstery, at age 21 and made enough money to pay the bills. But he also turned that business into a kind of art project, likely alienating potential repeat customers with his unique style.

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