The Reality Of Global Crises

What is going on? Consider the last few years: The global financial system was brought to its knees; the creditworthiness of the world's remaining superpower was downgraded; crises within the Eurozone escalated to threaten the entire world economy; many Arab countries became increasingly unstable, and for a few days arsonists and looters took control of British city streets; concealed abuses by Roman Catholic priests shook faith in some parts of the Establishment; concealed abuses by tabloid journalists, politicians and the police shook faith in much of the rest; meanwhile, governments around the globe appeared powerless to prevent collapsing fish-stocks, depleting water reserves, uncontrolled species-extinctions, escalating oil prices and growing threats of climate change. Such proliferating crises appear worryingly random and uncontrollable. Yet they are not. In reality, all of these global crises are indirectly linked. In this groundbreaking book, the foremost authority on the hidden inner-workings of society reveals how today's onslaught of apparently separate international backlashes is in fact an unintended consequence of living in an increasingly complex and interconnected world - ultimately they are side-effects of the accelerating growth of hugely-beneficial trends relating to High-Tech. As a result, the crises are set to escalate. And, stuck with existing global governance, world-leaders will struggle to make much difference. Working through all the major examples of growing crises, Dr. Scott-Morgan builds up progressive insights into how our global economy really works, which of the emerging crises are most dangerous, and how the main types can best be handled. Finally, in a world-shattering conclusion he demonstrates why existing government bodies alone are incapable of preventing a progressive slide toward global chaos, and how it will more likely fall to a combination of business-leaders and members of the general public to save the day as global governance realigns from Territory to Industry with the rise of Global Guilds and Boundaryless People-Power. NOTE: This is the companion volume to 'The Reality of our Global Future' by the same author.

The acclaimed historian demonstrates a link between climate change and social unrest across the globe during the mid-17th century. Revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, regicides, government collapses—the calamities of the mid-seventeenth century were unprecedented in both frequency and severity. The effects of what historians call the "General Crisis" extended from England to Japan and from the Russian Empire to sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas. In this meticulously researched volume, historian Geoffrey Parker presents the firsthand testimony of men and women who experienced the many political, economic, and social crises that occurred between 1618 to the late 1680s. He also incorporates the scientific evidence of climate change during this period into the narrative, offering a strikingly new understanding of the General Crisis. Changes in weather patterns, especially longer winters and cooler and wetter summers, disrupted growing seasons and destroyed harvests. This in turn brought hunger, malnutrition, and disease; and as material conditions worsened, wars, rebellions, and revolutions rocked the world.

This groundbreaking collection on global leadership features innovative and critical perspectives by scholars from international relations, political economy, medicine, law and philosophy, from North and South. The book's novel theorization of global leadership is situated historically within the classics of modern political theory and sociology, relating it to the crisis of global capitalism today. Contributors reflect on the multiple political, economic, social, ecological and ethical crises that constitute our current global predicament. The book suggests that there is an overarching condition of global organic crisis, which shapes the political and organizational responses of the dominant global leadership and of various subaltern forces. Contributors argue that to meaningfully address the challenges of the global crisis will require far more effective, inclusive and legitimate forms of global leadership and global governance than have characterized the neoliberal era.

Despite prognostications of the "end of history," the 21st century has posed new challenges and a host of global crises. This book takes up the current global economic crisis in relation to new and changing dynamics of territory, authority, and rights in today's global system. The authors explore long simmering conflicts in comparative perspective, including settler colonialism in South Africa, Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine. They discuss indigenous struggles against environmental land grabs and related destruction of indigenous lands by the US nuclear weapons complex. The book uniquely considers the sacred in the context of the global system, including struggles of Latina/o farm workers in the U.S. for social justice and for change in the Catholic Church. Other chapters examine questions of civilizations and identity in the contemporary global system, as well as the role of world-regions.

Crises in World Politics presents an integrated theory of crisis at both system and state levels. The Unified Model of Crises was designed to answer core questions: Under what conditions will a crisis erupt? Why do some crises escalate to war while others do not? Under what conditions will a crisis 'wind-down'? How does stress affect decision-making in crises? When will states resort to violence in crisis management? Why do some crises terminate in agreement while others do not? Finally, what are the consequences of crises, both for the adversaries and for the system in which a crisis occurs? The answers lie in a sequence of four interrelated phases of crisis - onset, escalation, deescalation, and impact. Systematic knowledge is presented about how these phases unfold using the data on 70 years of international and foreign policy crises from 1918 to 1988, amassed by the International Crisis Behaviour (ICB) Project. And an in-depth case study applies the United Model to the Gulf Crisis 1990-1991

It's time to stop just worrying about climate change, says Paul Gilding. Instead we need to brace for impact, because global crisis is no longer avoidable. The 'Great Disruption' started in 2008, with spiking food and oil prices and dramatic ecological change like the melting polar icecap. It is not simply about fossil fuels and carbon footprints. We have come to the end of Economic Growth, Version 1.0, a world economy based on consumption and waste, where we lived beyond the means of our planet's ecosystems and resources. The Great Disruption offers a stark and unflinching look at the challenge humanity faces - yet also a deeply optimistic message. The coming decades will see loss, suffering and conflict as our planetary overdraft is paid. However, they will also bring out the best humanity can offer: compassion, innovation, resilience and adaptability. Gilding tells us how to fight, and win, what he calls 'the One Degree War' to prevent catastrophic warming of the earth, and how to start today. The crisis we are in represents a rare chance to replace our addiction to growth with an ethic of sustainability, and it's already happening. It's also an unmatched business opportunity: old industries will collapse while new companies literally reshape our economy. In the aftermath of the Great Disruption, we will measure 'growth' in a new way. It will mean not quantity of stuff, but quality, and happiness, of life. And, yes, there is life after shopping. The Great Disruption is an invigorating and well-informed polemic by an advocate for sustainability and climate change who has dedicated his life to campaigning for a balanced use of Earth's limited resources. It is essential reading.

WINNER OF THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' TOP BOOK "An intelligent explanation of the mechanisms that produced the crisis and the response to it...One of the great strengths of Tooze's book is to demonstrate the deeply intertwined nature of the European and American financial systems."--The New York Times Book Review From the prizewinning economic historian and author of Shutdown and The Deluge, an eye-opening reinterpretation of the 2008 economic crisis (and its ten-year aftermath) as a global event that directly led to the shockwaves being felt around the world today. We live in a world where dramatic shifts in the domestic and global economy command the headlines, from rollbacks in US banking regulations to tariffs that may ignite international trade wars. But current events have deep roots, and the key to navigating today’s roiling policies lies in the events that started it all—the 2008 economic crisis and its aftermath. Despite initial attempts to downplay the crisis as a local incident, what happened on Wall Street beginning in 2008 was, in fact, a dramatic caesura of global significance that spiraled around the world, from the financial markets of the UK and Europe to the factories and dockyards of Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, forcing a rearrangement of global governance. With a historian’s eye for detail, connection, and consequence, Adam Tooze brings the story right up to today’s negotiations, actions, and threats—a much-needed perspective on a global catastrophe and its long-term consequences.

During 2008-2009, the world experienced its worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The crisis followed the effects of the food and fuel price hikes in 2007 and 2008. In 2009, global output contracted by 2 per cent. This 2011 Report on the World Social Situation reviews the ongoing adverse social consequences of these crises after an overview of its causes and transmission.

In conversations with people all over the world, from government officials and business leaders to taxi drivers and schoolteachers, Blair Sheppard, global leader for strategy and leadership at PricewaterhouseCoopers, discovered they all had surprisingly similar concerns. In this prescient and pragmatic book, he and his team sum up these concerns in what they call the ADAPT framework: Asymmetry of wealth; Disruption wrought by the unexpected and often problematic consequences of technology; Age disparities—stresses caused by very young or very old populations in developed and emerging countries; Populism as a symptom of the breakdown in global and national consensus; and loss of Trust in the institutions that underpin and stabilize society. These concerns are in turn precipitating four crises: a crisis of prosperity, a crisis of technology, a crisis of institutional legitimacy, and a crisis of leadership. Sheppard and his team analyze the complex roots of these crises—but they also offer solutions, albeit often seemingly counterintuitive ones. For example, in an era of globalization, we need to place a much greater emphasis on developing self-sustaining local economies. And as technology permeates our lives, we need computer scientists and engineers conversant with sociology and psychology and poets who can code. The authors argue persuasively that we have only a decade to make headway on these problems. But if we tackle them now, thoughtfully, imaginatively, creatively, and energetically, in ten years we could be looking at a dawn instead of darkness.

This collection gathers experts from Africa, North America, Asia and Europe to examine international policy responses to the 2008 global financial crisis. In doing so they reveal the implications for international cooperation, coordination and institutional change in global economic governance, and identify ways to reform and even replace the architecture created in the mid 20th century in order to meet the global challenges of the 21st.