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A Future Perfect: The Challenge and Hidden Promise of Globalization
A Future Perfect is the first comprehensive examination of the most important revolution of our time--globalization--and how it will continue to change our lives. The authors, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, correspondents for The Economist , won the Financial Times/Booz Allen Hamilton Global Business Book Award on Strategy and Leadership for their previous collaboration, The Witch Doctors . In A Future Perfect , Micklethwait and Wooldridge expand their field of vision in order to analyze, demystify, and expose the global forces reshaping our world, and they detail both the challenge and the hidden promise those forces hold for individuals, businesses, and governments.
Do businesses benefit from going global? Are we creating winner-take-all societies? Will globalization seal the triumph of junk culture? What will happen to individual careers? Gathering evidence from the shantytowns of São Paolo to the boardroom of General Electric, from the troubled Russia-Estonia border to the booming San Fernando Valley sex industry, Micklethwait and Wooldridge mount a powerful, witty, levelheaded defense of globalization.
Along the way, the authors introduce us to the cosmocrats--the members of the elite business, information, and diplomatic class who are creating the new world order. They also identify the three engines of globalization and describe how people are managing and governing in an increasingly global era. As they did in The Witch Doctors , the authors also brilliantly puncture myths and conventional wisdom, separating false hopes from emerging realities.
Incisive, expansive, and optimistic, A Future Perfect is an illuminating tour of the global economy and a fascinating assessment of its potential impact.
From the Hardcover edition.
Do businesses benefit from going global? Are we creating winner-take-all societies? Will globalization seal the triumph of junk culture? What will happen to individual careers? Gathering evidence from the shantytowns of São Paolo to the boardroom of General Electric, from the troubled Russia-Estonia border to the booming San Fernando Valley sex industry, Micklethwait and Wooldridge mount a powerful, witty, levelheaded defense of globalization.
Along the way, the authors introduce us to the cosmocrats--the members of the elite business, information, and diplomatic class who are creating the new world order. They also identify the three engines of globalization and describe how people are managing and governing in an increasingly global era. As they did in The Witch Doctors , the authors also brilliantly puncture myths and conventional wisdom, separating false hopes from emerging realities.
Incisive, expansive, and optimistic, A Future Perfect is an illuminating tour of the global economy and a fascinating assessment of its potential impact.
From the Hardcover edition.
386 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
8 people are currently reading
104 people want to read
About the author
John Micklethwait
18 books44 followersRichard John Micklethwait CBE (born 11 August 1962) is editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, a position he has held since February 2015. A British journalist, he was previously the editor-in-chief of The Economist from 2006 to 2015.
Micklethwait was born in 1962, in London, and was educated at Ampleforth College (an independent school) and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied history. He worked for Chase Manhattan Bank for two years and joined The Economist in 1987. Prior to becoming editor-in-chief, he was United States editor of the publication and ran the New York Bureau for two years. Before that, he edited the Business Section of the newspaper for four years. His other roles have included setting up an office in Los Angeles for The Economist, where he worked from 1990 to 1993. He has covered business and politics from the United States, Latin America, Continental Europe, Southern Africa and most of Asia.
Appointed as editor-in-chief on 23 March 2006, the first issue of The Economist published under his editorship was released on 7 April 2006. He was named Editors' Editor by the British Society of Magazine Editors in 2010. Micklethwait has frequently appeared on CNN, ABC News, BBC, C-SPAN, PBS and NPR.
In 2015 he was appointed as a Trustee of the British Museum. He was also a delegate, along with two colleagues, at the 2010 Bilderberg Conference held in Spain. This group consists of an assembly of notable politicians, industrialists and financiers who meet annually to discuss issues on a non-disclosure basis.
Micklethwait was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to journalism and economics.
Micklethwait was born in 1962, in London, and was educated at Ampleforth College (an independent school) and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied history. He worked for Chase Manhattan Bank for two years and joined The Economist in 1987. Prior to becoming editor-in-chief, he was United States editor of the publication and ran the New York Bureau for two years. Before that, he edited the Business Section of the newspaper for four years. His other roles have included setting up an office in Los Angeles for The Economist, where he worked from 1990 to 1993. He has covered business and politics from the United States, Latin America, Continental Europe, Southern Africa and most of Asia.
Appointed as editor-in-chief on 23 March 2006, the first issue of The Economist published under his editorship was released on 7 April 2006. He was named Editors' Editor by the British Society of Magazine Editors in 2010. Micklethwait has frequently appeared on CNN, ABC News, BBC, C-SPAN, PBS and NPR.
In 2015 he was appointed as a Trustee of the British Museum. He was also a delegate, along with two colleagues, at the 2010 Bilderberg Conference held in Spain. This group consists of an assembly of notable politicians, industrialists and financiers who meet annually to discuss issues on a non-disclosure basis.
Micklethwait was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to journalism and economics.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 23, 2021
The authors' main points are sometimes lost in some parts of the book. The first half is better argued, more organized, more consistent and better written than the second half.
October 3, 2012
File under "what were they thinking?" IE a good place to start on sussing out what was regarded as the shining city on the hill for the liars, thieves & creeps who charged off the cliff in 2008, thus launching the longest & most intractable recession since the 30s. Either the authors were completely oblivious to the rottenness and rapidly approaching collapse of the worlds financial crime syndicate operations known laughably as banks, or more likely they were blinded by (right wing) ideology. There's a desperation about it inasmuch as giving the timing of it's writing & publication it seems like a massive denial of all the evidence that so radically & shockingly exploded into focus in 1999 in Seattle. At no point do the authors admit what has been an ongoing mantra through the last decade; that it's not a "There Is No Alternative" world, Neoliberalism has lost its credibility, another world IS possible & on the plane of ideas and values that mentality and practise has already won.
December 26, 2015
This is one of the better books which introduces globalization for lay readers (i.e. non-specialist). For those with graduate degrees in political science, economics, or related fields there are perhaps "better" books that get into the weeds of global economics, geopolitics, and a connected world. But A Future Perfect is significantly better than much of the other options and its limitations are manageable.
June 10, 2007
It's hard to make good arguments in a book so short about a topic so broad. This one is at least very well-written, and the authors do occasionally bring new analysis to the debate, but like most (all?) books about globalization, pro or con, it's unsatisfying, and is little more than propaganda with which you can't help but disagree in part or in whole.
January 31, 2011
Really good book that I think really goes though how everything is tied together around the world on many different aspects. Totally liked the beginning portion of this book better then the last. This is not a quick read though since it is pretty long but it does make you think.
October 8, 2008
I read in business school at the same time as Friedman's "Lexus and Olive Tree." This has some of the same ideas, but is far more thoughtful.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews