SEVEN WAYS TO CHANGE THE WORLD HB

When the Covid-19 pandemic swept across the globe in 2020, it created an unprecedented impact, greater than the aftermath of 9/11 or the global financial crisis. But out of such disruption can come a new way of thinking, and in this superb new book former UK prime minister Gordon Brown offers his solutions to the challenges we face in 2021 and beyond.

In the book, he states that there are seven major global problems we must address: global health; climate change and environmental damage; nuclear proliferation; global financial instability; the humanitarian crisis and global poverty; the barriers to education and opportunity; and global inequality and its biggest manifestation, global tax havens. Each one presents an immense challenge that requires an urgent global response and solution. All should be on the world’s agenda today. None can be solved by one nation acting on its own, but all can be addressed if we work together as a global community.

However, Brown remains optimistic that, despite the many obstacles in our way, we will find a path to regeneration via a new era of global order. Yes, there is a crisis of globalisation, but we are beginning to see the means by which it might be resolved. Crises create opportunities and having two at once shouldn’t just focus the mind, it might even be seen as giving greater grounds for hope. In Seven Ways to Change the World, Brown provides an authoritative and inspirational pathway to a better future that is essential reading for policy makers and concerned citizens alike.

As reviewed by Stephen McQuoid, GLO Europe General Director

"This is a book which few people would have the experience or the intellectual weight to write, but Brown does, and does it very well, with the same forcefulness and determination that characterised his leadership style. He tackles some of the most pressing issues of the day from pandemics through to the climate challenge and the global economy. With each he suggests the essence of the problem and then also his proposed solution.

At times I felt that Brown made too many assumptions and places an over confidence on some of his statistical modelling. His left of centre collectivist leanings are also barely hidden. Some of his solutions are a little too packaged and, in my judgment, don’t take sufficient account of culture, human nature (especially greed), individualism and human error. I also think his section on the climate crisis could have benefitted by insights from the work of Bjorn Lomborg.

A bigger disappointment was that fact that he chastises the ethical vacuum in the work of Steven Pinker, a point I share, but he suggests no transcendent foundation for ethics himself other than the golden rule expressed in many religions. That aside, this is an excellent book written by deep thinker and Brown both identifies as well as understands the major issues of the day and posits what are generally credible responses, if only there was the political will. This book is a very worthwhile read.

Product details:
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK (10 Jun. 2021)
Hardcover: 512 pages
ISBN: 978-1398503618