Available From UC Press

In this brand new radical analysis of globalization, Cynthia Enloe examines recent events—Bangladeshi garment factory deaths, domestic workers in the Persian Gulf, Chinese global tourists, and the UN gender politics of guns—to reveal the crucial role of women in international politics today.

With all new and updated chapters, Enloe describes how many women's seemingly personal strategies—in their marriages, in their housework, in their coping with ideals of beauty—are, in reality, the stuff of global politics. Enloe offers a feminist gender analysis of the global politics of both masculinities and femininities, dismantles an apparently overwhelming world system, and reveals that system to be much more fragile and open to change than we think.

Cynthia Enloe is Professor of Political Science at Clark University and is the author of many books, including Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives and The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire. Enloe won the Howard Zinn Lifetime Achievement in Peace Studies Award from the Peace and Justice Studies Association (PJSA).

"This is the work of a well-travelled feminist mulling over the inequalities of the postmodern world. In a lively overview of tourism, the food industry, army bases, nationalism, diplomacy, global factories, and domestic work, Enloe persuasively argues that gender is key to the workings of international relations."—Aihwa Ong, University of California, Berkeley

"If you thought you understood how our world works, think again. Get ready to look at your jeans, your breakfast, and your morning paper in a whole new light. This book made my brain hurt, in the best way."—Sohaila Abdulali, author of Year of the Tiger

"The third edition of Bananas, Beaches and Bases demonstrates beyond all doubt the enduring brilliance of Cynthia Enloe’s fastidious documenting of women’s lives as they shape, and are shaped by the power-play of international politics. In sharpening and freshening feminist curiosity in the contemporary period, this edition reminds us of both the stubborn tenacity of gendered inequality as it is etched into everyday life and, in more optimistic terms, the potentially transformative capacity with which women’s lives inhere. A gritty yet erudite text illuminating the international topography of the current day, global gender regime of interest to fresh eyes as well as readers looking to get a handle on patriarchy’s mutability."—Dr Paul Higate, Reader in Gender & Security at the School for Sociology, Politics and International Studies, the University of Bristol and editor of Military Masculinities: Identity and the State (Praeger: Greenwood)

"This book is a rare gem. After having read it, international relations will never look the same again. Through bananas, beaches, bases and the many lives women live Cynthia Enloe most persuasively shows that global politics is not where it is supposed to be. A third, updated edition of this classic is very welcome indeed."—Jef Huysmans, Professor of Security Studies, The Open University (UK)

"To change the world´s inequalities, we need texts that illuminate how power operates and hence how our personal power matters. An exemplary teaching tool, Enloe´s text simultaneously informs, entertains, disturbs and even inspires."—V. Spike Peterson, Professor of International Relations, Univ of Arizona, Tucson AZ

"As I hold the Turkish translation of the first Bananas, I wonder how many readers, in how many languages have been inspired to look at our worlds - and imagine new worlds - through the ‘gender-curious feminist eyes’ that Cynthia Enloe offers as a gift to us all. Making connecting between an amazing array of contemporary conversations and struggles, this Bananas is not a revised gift, it is a whole new gift! It impressively shows that if we miss gender, we simply miss how the world – and certainly international politics – goes round."—Ayse Gül Altinay, Cultural Anthropologist, Sabanci University and author of The Myth of the Military-Nation

"As breathtaking as the first edition, Bananas, Beaches and Bases breaks new ground once again, compelling the reader to take a fresh feminist look at the gendered international politics of the “personal” in the age of social media."—Catia Cecilia Confortini, Assistant Professor, Peace & Justice Studies Program, Wellesley College

"Cynthia Enloe’s unparalleled skill in making the everyday lives of women visible in and relevant to international politics is on full display as she employs her feminist curiosity to challenge the boundaries of the “international.” Listening carefully and not afraid to admit surprise, Enloe weaves a tapestry of stories that reveal the workings of power from the personal to the political and back. Her sustained and deeply political engagement with women from all walks of life – all over the world – makes us genuinely smarter about global politics. You will not be able to put this book down."—Annick T.R. Wibben, author of Feminist Security Studies: A Narrative Approach (Routledge, 2011)

"With Bananas, Beaches and Bases, Cynthia Enloe sparked an immense paradigm shift and produced multiple wildfires of feminist scholarship, from international relations to political economy to feminist theory. Now another generation of students, activists and scholars can be made “smarter” with the Third Edition of this essential text."—Ethel Brooks, professor of Women's and Gender Studies and Sociology, Rutgers University

"Cynthia Enloe is unparalleled in her ability to make feminist sense of international politics.  This groundbreaking book illustrates the inadequacies of analytic frames that do not take the workings of gendered power seriously, arguing persuasively that the most complex, and comprehensive understandings of international politics must be fueled by feminist curiosity.  A compelling, lucid, and engaging book--a must for all our bookshelves."—Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Author of Feminism Without Borders, Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity, 2003