- Paperback: 432 pages
- Publisher: Random House Business Books (5 July 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0712673989
- ISBN-13: 978-0712673983
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 15.6 x 3.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,513,852 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Amazon.co.uk Review
"Globalisation is the single most important force in the world today", write journalists John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, both of The Economist (and coauthors of The Witch Doctors):
The integration of the world economy is not only reshaping business but also reordering the lives of individuals, creating new social classes, different jobs, unimaginable wealth, and, occasionally, wretched poverty. From Washington to Beijing, politicians are increasingly defined in terms of their attitudes toward globalisation. The key political arguments of the next few years--between Islam and the West, Eurosceptics and Europhiles, the new left and the old--will all be variations arising from one underlying conflict: the one between globalisers who want to see the world reshaped in their own image and traditionalists who want to preserve fragments of traditional culture and local independence.
Micklethwait and Wooldridge are advocates of the former, not the latter. In A Future Perfect--a rich synthesis of anecdote, analysis, and argument--they make a strong case both for globalisation's economic benefits and its classically liberal underpinnings. They acknowledge frustration with public debates over globalisation that "always seem to involve a shuttered textile factory in South Carolina, never a young African child sitting at a computer; always a burning Amazonian forest, never a young Brazilian investment banker; always The Lion King or the Spice Girls, never the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao." A Future Perfect relentlessly reports the upside of globalisation--the book is full of stories--and makes the vital point that more than economics is at stake. At bottom, write Micklethwait and Wooldridge, the issue is freedom. They bemoan "restrictions on where people can go, what they can buy, where they can invest, and what they can read, hear, or see. Globalisation by its nature brings down these barriers, and it helps to hand the power to choose to the individual." Like a good article in The Economist, A Future Perfect is well written and concise. It also renders complicated subjects understandable, and has the welcome effect of making readers feel more intelligent for having cracked its spine. Much has been written about globalisation; this book may be the best of the lot thus far. --John J. Miller --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Independent
‘Makes a strong liberal case for globalisation…clear and even light-hearted…an excellent book.'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Micklethwait and Wooldridge make the point that globalisation suffers just as much from its boosters as it does from its detractors. It will not produce "a future perfect" - just a future very much better than any of the available alternatives. Only yesterday the best defence of globalisation that a WTO spokesman could offer in a radio interview was "it's probably inevitable". I hope he is right, but this book argues that far from being inevitable, globalisation is actually very fragile and needs defending and arguing for in terms that ordinary people can understand. The trouble is that those who benefit from it tend to credit their own hard work and talent while those who loose out are happy to blame globalisation.
The book is also wonderfully well written. It considers seriously and sympathetically the plight of those whose who can be said to have lost out through globalisation. It presents the arguments of the detractors of globalisation fairly and then demolishes them robustly. It has a nicely judged, wry sense of humour ("[John Maynard] Keynes did admit to having a 'deeply spiritual' lunch with Beatrice [Webb] in 1913, but he did not repeat the experience until 1926.") It recognises that economics are not everything: globalisation does increase efficiency and thereby boosts growth making us richer, but more importantly it also increases individual freedom (of most whom it is allowed to reach, not just the elites) making us happier.
Buy this book, read it and join the debate - the barbarian tribes are gathering and it may soon be too late.
Format:Paperback
This book is an excellent follow-on from "The Witchdoctors", as Micklethwait and Wooldridge again take apart some of the myths of our modern era. In this book they clearly argue the case for globalisation - not ignoring some of its adverse effects, but noting the overall benefits provided. It was good to see them boldly stepping outside the pure economic and sociological reasons towards a strong apologetic for liberal democracy and society. Good use of dry humour throughout kept the book readable and accessible.
A must to send to those friends that are politically niave and ecominically illeterate enough to oppose globalisation and seem to be winning the battle for hearts and minds.
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