Michael Veseth makes a colorful and contrarian argument: The reality of globalization is both quantitatively and qualitatively different from the images that intellectuals, politicians, and business leaders promote; the globalization myth persists, however, because the notion of invincible global markets serves so many often contradictory interests. Veseth’s investigation of international financial markets finds strong evidence of systematic crisis and chaos conditions that both limit the degree and influence the nature of truly global business behavior. Critiquing exaggerated claims of global market power and providing insightful case studies of “global” firms, he examines the political and intellectual interests that promote the globalization myth for their own purposes. The book concludes with a speculative essay on the prospects for and consequences of real globalization in the international political economy of the 21st century.