Fences and Windows

"The irony of the media-imposed label 'anti-globalization' is that we in this movement have been turning globalization into a lived reality, perhaps more than even the most multinational of corporate executives, or the most restless of jet-setters . . . Like others who found themselves in this global web, I arrived equipped only with a limited understanding of neo-liberal economics but like so many others, I have been globalized by this movement: I have learned what the market obsession has meant to landless farmers in Brazil, to teachers in Argentina, to fast-food workers in Italy, to coffee growers in Mexico, to shanty-town dwellers in South Africa, to telemarketers in France, to migrant tomato pickers in Florida, to union organizers in the Philippines, to homeless kids in Toronto. In a way, this collection is the record of my own steep learning curve."—From the author's Preface to this book

"Klein has become one of the antiglobalization movement's primary translators, rendering complex economic issues in accessible language . . . In Fences and Windows she reframes the protests as something more joyful (and much less threatening) than the media images of broken McDonald's windows suggested—as 'an alternative global city where urgency replaces resignation . . . and the prospect of political change does not seem like an odd and anachronistic idea but the most logical thought in the world.'"—Joy Press, The Village Voice

"As Klein notes in her preface, this book is more a stopgap than a follow-up. Covering the period of late 1999 to 2002, the book collects Klein's in-the-trenches journalism about sweatshops, genetically modified foods, evolving police tactics for crowd control and more. The two title images recur throughout: the fences are real, steel cages keeping protesters from interfering with summits, but they are also metaphorical, such as the 'fence' of poverty that prevents the poor from receiving adequate education or health care. Klein argues that globalization has only delivered its promised benefits to the world's wealthiest citizens and that its emphasis on privatization has eroded the availability of public services around the globe. Critics have suggested that the 'anti-globalization' movement (a term loathed, Klein notes, by many people actually involved) lacks a cohesive structure, but Klein generally sees this decentralization as a strength, likening the small groups' 'hub and spoke' organization to that of linked Web sites. While Klein offers snapshots of success stories involving Nike, Starbucks and other corporate monoliths, she wisely does not suggest any easy solutions to this complex mesh of problems. Despite post-September 11 talk to the contrary, these dispatches indicate that the movement is far from over."—Publishers Weekly