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Book Review: Justice, society and nature: an exploration of political ecology; Natural causes: essays in ecological Marxism

professional journals, commercial directories, central banks, organizational exchanges and supranational bodies such as the IMF, OECD and BIS. There are 100 maps, mainly showing the global distribution of anything from domestic and crossborder claims outstanding to the density of life and nonlife insurance per head by country. It is certain that compiling this and other statistical material used throughout the book has been a painstaking task requiring a sound knowledge of the sources and their limitations. The latter are always fully explained and provide an object lesson for anyone trying to measure the size and relative importance of international financial centres, for example. On the debit side, and as the author himself acknowledges (p. 9), the analysis and discussion of general patterns and trends in the development of markets in bonds or forex, for example, or in the different types of banks and the roles that each perform is rather superficial. The problem is compounded when trying to generalize about global patterns that are complicated, for example, by the variety of regulatory regimes, regional differences in financial structures or culture, or the inertia dictated by historical practice and tradition. After an Introduction that reflects on the approach and the limitation of a cross-sectional analysis of a set of activities that are constantly in a state of flux, the remainder of the book falls into four parts. The first part (Chap. 2) provides details of the 'playground'; the monetary and institutional context for the financial assets (equity, debt, bank deposits) that are at the heart of ebbs and flows, the sources and sinks that comprise financial geography. The core of the book (Chaps 3 and 4) gives details of how exchanges and financial markets actually function. The key word here is diversity and complexity which, in turn, contribute to the agglomeration tendencies that are the focus of the fourth part (Chap. 7) on the characteristics and location of onshore and offshore financial centres. This is ground that is most well known to economic geographers with the added bonus of a useful analysis of offshore banking centres and a thoughtful discussion of the future prospects for international financial centres such as London. Prior to this, a third section (Chaps 5 and 6) adopts a sectoral perspective with an overview of the organization and structure of banking and of insurance and its geographical imprint. While insurance is often seen as a separate activity from the financial markets, it is argued that in practice it has such substantial reserves and handles risks such as those arising from foreign trade or credit risk in lending as to make it integral to finance rather than separate. The sheer volume of information provided makes this book a reference source to be dipped in to from time to time as much as an item to be read from beginning to end. In order for the material to be as contemporary as possible the end of 1997 was the deadline for including new information. While this is very understandable, it has perhaps been at the cost of a more professional presentation. Editorial oversights mean that it is difficult at times to follow a sentence or an argument. The numerous maps and charts are fascinating but are not always clearly reproduced and easy to use. More importantly, given the range of topics covered, the diversity of the financial instruments discussed or the variety of institutions profiled it would be extremely useful to be able to consult an index. As it is, although subheadings are liberally used to signpost topics in each chapter, it is extremely difficult to access specific items of interest quickly in the text. Such blemishes detract from an otherwise useful attempt by an economic geographer to unravel the complexities of money and finance at the global scale.