Trade: Commodities, Communications and Consciousness

Whether it’s globalization, the New Economy, or young protesters in Seattle, trade is obviously on everyone’s mind these days. This book offers a unique and fresh look at the concepts and realities of trade today. Images by photographers from all over the world add up to a fascinating panoramic view of a world shaped by trade: the artifice, glitz, and glamour of shopping, the sprawling metropolises in the East and the West, the lavish displays of power in the headquarters of multinational companies, the inventiveness and the desperation of people in the Third World, global traffic and high-tech communication. All are there in this stimulating, enchanting, and haunting selection of photographs. The striking, and sometimes threatening, images are complemented by a collage of text quotes on trade, ranging from pop culture to philosophy and anthropology. The compilation of texts offers trenchant insights, powerful rants, amusing anecdotes, contradictory at times, but always incisive. Like the images, this collage offers the reader a dizzying array of possible perspectives and thoughts on trade. Instead of purveying a single dogmatic ideology, the book intends to show the astonishingly manifold facets of the phenomenon “trade.” “Trade” offers the readers an opportunity to discover playfully their own viewpoint. It combines images and texts to create an entertaining and provocative view of life at the beginning of the millennium.