Book Archives - Page 3 of 4

The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats – And Our Response – Will Change the World

Ian Bremmer argues that the world faces three major crises—pandemics, climate change, and disruptive technologies (AI, lethal autonomous weapons, cyberwarfare, and biotechnology)—but our ability to respond effectively is hampered by broken American politics and the worsening rivalry between the United States and China. The three crises, however, present an opportunity and the necessary impetus for […]

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How the World Really Works

Against those who anticipate a smooth, timely transition to renewable energy and net-zero carbon emissions, Vaclav Smil argues that we are much more dependent on fossil fuels than we recognize so that an energy transition will be difficult and tumultuous. “The real wrench in the works: we are a fossil-fueled civilization whose technical and scientific

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Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World’s Economy

Adam Tooze examines the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic on finance and business, highlighting just how unprepared and vulnerable economic systems were to the crisis. He highlights the ways in which institutional failures, political interests, economic policies, and geopolitics interacted with the pandemic to shape its impacts. Characterizing the situation as a polycrisis, he applies

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The New Systems Reader

Solutions to single problems are never enough when crises stem from flaws in their hosts systems. The New Systems Reader brings together thinkers and activists to propose strategies for systemic change. “The starting point for this book is the inability of the traditional politics and policy to address fundamental challenges. Our goal is not to

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The Age of Sustainability: Just Transitions in a Complex World

Mark Swilling proposes that “we need to understand the dynamics of the current global polycrisis as the emergent outcome of intersections between four dimensions of transition: socio-metabolic transition, techno-economic transition, socio-technical transition and long-term global development cycles. When understood as multiple cycles that intersect concurrently and asynchronistically across these four dimensions, the emergent outcome can

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The Butterfly Defect: How Globalization Creates Systemic Risks, and What to Do about it

Ian Goldin and Mike Mariathasan argue that systemic risk is endemic to globalization that cannot be removed. “It is a process to be managed rather than a problem to be solved” (p. xiii). But rather than retreat from globalization and forfeit its considerable benefits, the authors argue that systemic risk requires global governance reforms to

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Ready for Anything: Designing Resilience for a Transforming World

Anthony Hodgson introduces the World System Model as a new and holistic way to understand of the key issues facing humanity and their interconnections. The book explains how the model can be applied by different groups and examines the kind of resilient and adaptative solutions that may prove most useful.

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Critical Transitions in Nature and Society

From shallow lakes that flip from clear to turbid water to major climate shifts, big shifts in social norms to the collapse of societies and ecosystems, Marten Scheffer shows that many complex systems undergo “critical transitions” (or “regime shifts”) between multiple stable states (or “equilibria”). In these transitions, slow and often unseen change in a

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