Connectography: Mapping the Global Network Revolution

Description

Which lines on the map matter most? It is time to reimagine how life is organized on Earth. We're accelerating into a future shaped less by countries than by connectivity. A world in which the most connected powers, and people, will win. In CONNECTOGRAPHY, Parag Khanna guides us through the emerging global network civilization in which mega-cities compete over connectivity and borders are increasingly irrelevant. He travels from Ukraine to Iran, Mongolia to North Korea, London to Dubai and the Arctic Circle to the South China Sea - all to show how twenty-first-century conflict is a tug-of-war over pipelines and internet cables, advanced technologies and market access. Yet CONNECTOGRAPHY offers a hopeful vision of the future. Khanna argues that new energy discoveries and innovations have eliminated the need for resource wars, global financial assets are being deployed to build productive infrastructure that can reduce inequality, and frail regions such as Africa and the Middle East are unscrambling their fraught colonial borders through ambitious new transportation corridors and power grids. Beneath the chaos of a world that appears to be falling apart is a new foundation of connectivity pulling it together.

Parag Khanna is the founder and managing partner of FutureMap, a global strategic advisory firm that specialises in data-driven scenarios and visualisations. He is the internationally bestselling author of seven books including The Second World, Connectography and The Future is Asian. Parag was named one of Esquire's '75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century' and featured in WIRED magazine's 'Smart List.' He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and both a bachelor's and master's degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He has travelled to more than 150 countries.

For those who fear that the world is becoming too inward-looking, CONNECTOGRAPHY is a refreshing, optimistic vision - THE ECONOMIST Incredible . . . We don't often question the typical world map that hangs on the walls of classrooms - a patchwork of yellow, pink and green that separates the world into more than two hundred nations. But Parag Khanna, a global strategist, says that this map is, essentially, obsolete . . . With the world rapidly changing and urbanizing, [Khanna's] proposals might be the best way to confront a radically different future - WASHINGTON POST Parag Khanna has vision A great feat of reportage - Financial Times on The Second World