Recommendations based on "State of the World A Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Toward a Sustainable Society"

Grand strategist and founder of modern Singapore offers key insights and controversial opinions on globalization, geopolitics, economic growth, and democracy.When Lee Kuan Yew speaks, presidents, prime ministers, diplomats, and CEOs listen. Lee, the founding father of modern Singapore and its prime minister from 1959 to 1990, has honed his wisdom during more than fifty years on the world stage. Almost single-handedly responsible for transforming Singapore into a Western-style economic success, he offers a unique perspective on the geopolitics of East and West. American presidents from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama have welcomed him to the White House; British prime ministers from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair have recognized his wisdom; and business leaders from Rupert Murdoch to Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, have praised his accomplishments. This book gathers key insights from interviews, speeches, and Lee's voluminous published writings and presents them in an engaging question and answer format.Lee offers his assessment of China's future, asserting, among other things, that “China will want to share this century as co-equals with the U.S.” He affirms the United States' position as the world's sole superpower but expresses dismay at the vagaries of its political system. He offers strategic advice for dealing with China and goes on to discuss India's future, Islamic terrorism, economic growth, geopolitics and globalization, and democracy. Lee does not pull his punches, offering his unvarnished opinions on multiculturalism, the welfare state, education, and the free market. This little book belongs on the reading list of every world leader—including the one who takes the oath of office on January 20, 2013.

" If you want to get beyond gestures and slogans and to the truth, this is the book to get you there" Russell Brand" Kehinde Andrews is a crucial voice walking in a proud tradition of Black radical criticism and action" Akala" An uncompromising account of the roots of racism today" Kimberlé Crenshaw" This clear-eyed analysis insists upon the revolutionary acts of freedom we will need to break out of these systems of violence" Ibram X. KendiThe New Age of Empire takes us back to the beginning of the European Empires, outlining the deliberate terror and suffering wrought during every stage of the expansion, and destroys the self-congratulatory myth that the West was founded on the three great revolutions of science, industry and politics. Instead, genocide, slavery and colonialism are the key foundation stones upon which the West was built, and we are still living under this system America is now at the helm, perpetuating global inequality through business, government, and institutions like the UN, the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO.The West is rich because the Rest is poor. Capitalism is racism. The West congratulations itself on raising poverty by increments in the developing world while ignoring the fact that it created these conditions in the first place, and continues to perpetuate them. The Enlightenment, which underlies every part of our foundational philosophy today, was and is profoundly racist. This colonial logic was and is used to justify the ransacking of Black and brown bodies and their land. The fashionable solutions offered by the white Left in recent years fall far short of even beginning to tackle the West's place at the helm of a racist global order.Offering no easy answers, The New Age of Empire is essential reading to understand our profoundly corrupt global system. A work of essential clarity, The New Age of Empire is a groundbreaking new blueprint for taking Black Radical thought into the twenty-first century and beyond.

For more than a century, no US adversary or coalition of adversaries - not Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, or the Soviet Union - has ever reached sixty percent of US GDP. China is the sole exception, and it is fast emerging into a global superpower that could rival, if not eclipse, the United States. What does China want, does it have a grand strategy to achieve it, and what should the United States do about it?In The Long Game, Rush Doshi draws from a rich base of Chinese primary sources, including decades worth of party documents, leaked materials, memoirs by party leaders, and a careful analysis of China's conduct to provide a history of China's grand strategy since the end of the Cold War. Taking readers behind the Party's closed doors, he uncovers Beijing's long, methodical game to displace America from its hegemonic position in both the East Asia regional and global orders through three sequential "strategies of displacement." Beginning in the 1980s, China focused for two decades on "hiding capabilities and biding time." After the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, it became more assertive regionally, following a policy of "actively accomplishing something." Finally, in the aftermath populist elections of 2016, China shifted to an even more aggressive strategy for undermining US hegemony, adopting the phrase "great changes unseen in century." After charting how China's long game has evolved, Doshi offers a comprehensive yet asymmetric plan for an effective US response. Ironically, his proposed approach takes a page from Beijing's own strategic playbook to undermine China's ambitions and strengthen American order without competing dollar-for-dollar, ship-for-ship, or loan-for-loan.

The New York Times bestseller from CNN Political Commentator and 2020 former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, this thought-provoking and prescient call-to-action outlines the urgent steps America must take, including Universal Basic Income (UBI), to stabilize our economy amid rapid technological change and automation. The shift toward automation is about to create a tsunami of unemployment. Not in the distant future--now. One recent estimate predicts 45 million American workers will lose their jobs within the next twelve years--jobs that won't be replaced. In a future marked by restlessness and chronic unemployment, what will happen to American society? In The War on Normal People, Andrew Yang paints a dire portrait of the American economy. Rapidly advancing technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics and automation software are making millions of Americans' livelihoods irrelevant. The consequences of these trends are already being felt across our communities in the form of political unrest, drug use, and other social ills. The future looks dire-but is it unavoidable? In The War on Normal People, Yang imagines a different future--one in which having a job is distinct from the capacity to prosper and seek fulfillment. At this vision's core is Universal Basic Income, the concept of providing all citizens with a guaranteed income-and one that is rapidly gaining popularity among forward-thinking politicians and economists. Yang proposes that UBI is an essential step toward a new, more durable kind of economy, one he calls "human capitalism."

New York Times Book Review Editor’s ChoiceSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2015 FINANCIAL TIMES AND MCKINSEY BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEARA New York Times technology and business reporter charts the dramatic rise of Bitcoin and the fascinating personalities who are striving to create a new global money for the Internet age.Digital Gold is New York Times reporter Nathaniel Popper’s brilliant and engrossing history of Bitcoin, the landmark digital money and financial technology that has spawned a global social movement.The notion of a new currency, maintained by the computers of users around the world, has been the butt of many jokes, but that has not stopped it from growing into a technology worth billions of dollars, supported by the hordes of followers who have come to view it as the most important new idea since the creation of the Internet. Believers from Beijing to Buenos Aires see the potential for a financial system free from banks and governments. More than just a tech industry fad, Bitcoin has threatened to decentralize some of society’s most basic institutions.An unusual tale of group invention, Digital Gold charts the rise of the Bitcoin technology through the eyes of the movement’s colorful central characters, including an Argentinian millionaire, a Chinese entrepreneur, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and Bitcoin’s elusive creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Already, Bitcoin has led to untold riches for some, and prison terms for others.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Arab and Jew, an intimate portrait unfolds of working American families struggling against insurmountable odds to escape poverty. "This is clearly one of those seminal books that every American should read and read now." —The New York Times Book Review As David K. Shipler makes clear in this powerful, humane study, the invisible poor are engaged in the activity most respected in American ideology—hard, honest work. But their version of the American Dream is a nightmare: low-paying, dead-end jobs; the profound failure of government to improve upon decaying housing, health care, and education; the failure of families to break the patterns of child abuse and substance abuse. Shipler exposes the interlocking problems by taking us into the sorrowful, infuriating, courageous lives of the poor—white and black, Asian and Latino, citizens and immigrants. We encounter them every day, for they do jobs essential to the American economy. This impassioned book not only dissects the problems, but makes pointed, informed recommendations for change. It is a book that stands to make a difference.

Winner of the 2021 Lionel Gelber Prize: A provocative look at how today’s trade conflicts are caused by governments promoting the interests of elites at the expense of workers“The authors weave a complex tapestry of monetary, fiscal and social policies through history and offer opinions about what went right and what went wrong . . . Worth reading for their insights into the history of trade and finance.”—George Melloan, Wall Street Journal"This is a very important book."—Martin Wolf, Financial Times Trade disputes are usually understood as conflicts between countries with competing national interests, but as Matthew C. Klein and Michael Pettis show, they are often the unexpected result of domestic political choices to serve the interests of the rich at the expense of workers and ordinary retirees. Klein and Pettis trace the origins of today’s trade wars to decisions made by politicians and business leaders in China, Europe, and the United States over the past thirty years. Across the world, the rich have prospered while workers can no longer afford to buy what they produce, have lost their jobs, or have been forced into higher levels of debt. In this thought†‘provoking challenge to mainstream views, the authors provide a cohesive narrative that shows how the class wars of rising inequality are a threat to the global economy and international peace—and what we can do about it. Longlisted for the 2020 Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award and named a Best Business Book of 2020 by Strategy Business

We live in an age of increasing complexity, where accelerating technology and global interconnection hold more promise - and more peril - than any other time in human history. The fossil fuels that have powered global wealth creation now threaten to destroy the world they helped build. Automation and digitization promise prosperity for some, unemployment for others. Financial crises fuel growing inequality, polarization and the retreat of democracy. At heart, all these problems are rooted in the economy, yet the guidance provided by economic models has often failed. Many books have been written about Doyne Farmer and his work, but Making Sense of Chaos is the first in his own words. It presents a manifesto for how to do economics better. A tale of science and ideas, Farmer fuses his profound knowledge and expertise with stories from his life to explain how we can bring a scientific revolution to bear on the economic conundrums facing society. Using big data and ever more powerful computers, we are now able for the first time to apply complex systems science to economic activity, building realistic models of the global economy. The resulting simulations and the emergent behavior we observe form the cornerstone of the science of complexity economics, allowing us to test ideas and make significantly better economic predictions - to better address the hard problems facing the world.

This now-classic examination of the development of viable political institutions in emerging nations is a major and enduring contribution to modern political analysis. In a new Foreword, Francis Fukuyama assesses Huntington's achievement, examining the context of the book's original publication as well as its lasting importance."This pioneering volume, examining as it does the relation between development and stability, is an interesting and exciting addition to the literature."--American Political Science Review"'Must' reading for all those interested in comparative politics or in the study of development."--Dankwart A. Rustow, Journal of International Affairs

Henry Kissinger analyses how six extraordinary leaders he has known have shaped their countries and the world 'Leaders, ' writes Henry Kissinger in this compelling book, 'think and act at the intersection of two axes: the first, between the past and the future; the second between the abiding values and aspirations of those they lead. They must balance what they know, which is necessarily drawn from the past, with what they intuit about the future, which is inherently conjectural and uncertain. It is this intuitive grasp of direction that enables leaders to set objectives and lay down a strategy.' In Leadership, Kissinger analyses the lives of six extraordinary leaders through the distinctive strategies of statecraft which he believes they embodied. After the Second World War, Konrad Adenauer brought defeated and morally bankrupt Germany back into the community of nations by what Kissinger calls 'the strategy of humility'. Charles de Gaulle set France beside the victorious Allies and renewed its historic grandeur by 'the strategy of will'. During the Cold War, Richard Nixon gave geostrategic advantage to the United States by 'the strategy of equilibrium'. After twenty-five years of conflict, Anwar Sadat brought a vision of peace to the Middle East by a 'strategy of transcendence'. Against the odds, Lee Kwan Yew created a powerhouse city-state, Singapore, by 'the strategy of excellence'. Although when she came to power Britain was known as 'the sick man of Europe', Margaret Thatcher renewed her country's morale and international position by 'the strategy of conviction'. To each of these studies, Kissinger brings historical perception, public experience and - because he knew each of their subjects, and participated in many of the events he describes - personal knowledge. The book is enriched by insights and judgements such as only he could make, and concludes with his reflections on world order and the indispensability of leadership today.