Introduction to Global Social Problems: Understanding Inequalities of Power and Social Justice

Introduction to Global Social Problems introduces undergraduate students to national and international social problems from a critical sociological perspective. Isaac Zvi Christiansen presents clear descriptions of each social problem, explains key concepts, and provides students with the relevant theoretical tools needed to grasp the interconnected nature of these phenomena.

This volume covers significant and interconnected issues. The book begins with an explanation of how corporate interests distort the depiction of social problems. Chapters 2 and 3 provide empirical explorations of poverty and inequality on national and global scales, together with clear and accessible expositions of relevant sociological theories. Chapter 4 examines health and educational inequalities exacerbated by the economic inequalities discussed in Chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 5 introduces students to issues of racial inequalities in the United States and abroad, while Chapter 6 takes a comparative approach to examining crime and criminal justice. Chapter 7 examines modern-day imperialism and war, with special attention given to the military industrial complex, and a brief review of US interventions around the world in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Chapter 8 examines politics and human rights, including a critical, historical, and sociological analysis of Israeli settler-colonialism and successive US/Israeli assaults on Gaza. The book closes with an examination of population and the environment, with special attention given to climate change, and the pressing contradictions between capitalism and the environment.

This textbook will be a vital resource for introductory students across the social sciences, especially in sociology, political science, and global studies. It provides critical wraparound coverage of the momentous, embedded social problems that interconnect across social, national, and regional boundaries.

Isaac Zvi Christiansen is an associate professor in Midwestern State University’s Department of Sociology, in Wichita Falls, Texas. He conducts research on health inequalities, sociology of development, and other issues related to Marxist political economy and sociology. As a Marxist sociologist, he is very interested in studying socialist development models, the generation of economic crises under capitalism, and imperialism. His work has been published in World Review of Political Economy, International Critical Thought, The International Journal of Cuban Studies, and The Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis.