How to Run the World: Towards the Next Renaissance?

Parag Khanna, a Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation and Senior Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, published his second book How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance earlier this year. An audacious title meant to grab attention, but there is much of interest.

In an interview with Knowledge@Wharton, Khanna shares some of his key theses and points of view, and I reproduce here an excerpt on his belief that we are entering a "postmodern Middle Ages":

The Middle Ages was that period a thousand years ago when East and West were simultaneously powerful -- when China was the world's most advanced civilization under the Song Dynasty, when the Chola Dynasty of India was a great naval power, and when the Arab and Islamic Caliphates ruled all the way from North Africa to Central Asia. Europe was weak and divided between the Byzantine Empire and the Holy Roman Empire. The fact that it was a multipolar landscape around the world is a very important attribute of the Middle Ages. As I spent a lot of time arguing in my first book, The Second World, the world is already very multipolar. We need to appreciate that it is not the first time in history.

Secondly, that was a time when not just states, but also cities, companies, mercenary armies, humanitarians and churches were very important actors in the diplomatic landscape. So, too, is that the case again today. For those two reasons, we are seeing this emergence of a postmodern Middle Ages. Now, technology and money and identity are all very much factors that also help to shape who has power and who calls the shots.

Here's a speech on the book that Khanna gave at the New America Foundation:

If this topic piques your interest, here's a TED Talk that Khanna gave back in 2009, and it's sobering to see how much of recent history is a train in slow-motion...

Source article:

• Parag Khanna on 'How to Run the World' (Knowledge@Wharton)