I've made a bibliography for each episode (1-2-3-4-5-6), and a general list of resources here for you to chew on.

The bookstores are full of interesting perspectives on globalization — the food, music and ethics of it all, as well as the politics and economics. Some of the basic books I've found helpful are:

Joseph Stiglitz, "Globalization and Its Discontents."

Tom Friedman, "The Lexus and the Olive Tree."

Amartya Sen, "Development as Freedom."

Benjamin Barber, "Jihad Vs. McWorld."

Naomi Klein, "No Logo."

In learning about the world consciousness out there, I have revelled in a marvellous website (originating at the National University of Singapore) on Post-Colonial Literature:

http://www.postcolonialweb.org/

Jamaica prompted my own course of post-colonial reading with the brilliant Trinidadian C. L. R. James. His "Beyond a Boundary" is a masterpiece, using his beloved game of cricket as a metaphor of everything good and bad in the legacy of empire. James led my reading backward to Thackeray, Dickens, Conrad, Kipling and Maugham, and forward to people like the Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier, the Dominican Junot Diaz, the Somalian Nuruddin Farah, the dreaded V. S. Naipaul, the vital Edward Said, the "beyond category" Zadie Smith.

Contemporary writers are a huge part of my travelling education, and some of them have become real friends, like Kwadwo Opoku Agyemang in Ghana, Colin Channer in Jamaica, and Philip Jeyaretnam in Singapore. The new joy of my reading is Amin Maalouf, a French-Lebanese novelist, historian and brilliant illuminator of the identity riddle.