globalization

Great book that helps to understand tranformation for Istanbul and Turkey through the XX century. It’s interesting in the context of continuous globalization and westernization of the developing countries around the world.

Orhan Pamuk

I would develop the idea that it is we ourselves who are undermining our own identity - by the terrible way we speak, the appaling architecture we put up, our lack of respect for the landscape and historical buildings, our dubious urbanization, the way we’ve given up on the plurality of trades and small businesses, the depopulation of the countryside, the construction of ever greater monuments to consumption without increasing the productivity and efficiency of our own industries or making a sophisticated attempts to market our own products… We are becoming just another globalized country.

Václav Havel

… at moments it’s almost impossible to know whether you’re in an airport in Tokyo, a hotel lobby in Los Angeles, or a hypermarket on the outskirts of Prague. The pressure towards soulless uniformity that is perceptible everywhere today - despite the seemingly endless array of choices among a seemingly infinite array of products pretending to be different from one another - poses a great threat to all forms of uniqueness. Without even being aware of it we are subtly made more alike…

Václav Havel