Globalisation, energy, international crime, Weapons of Mass Destruction, nuclear proliferation, small arms proliferation, international drugs trafficking, climate change, water shortage, migration, epidemic disease, the fraying of the nation state: the list of challenges facing our world is itself proliferating rapidly, and nobody seems to have much of a grip on what is going on.

Digesting vast amounts of information from a multiplicity of sources, and drawing on his experience at the highest levels of national and international politics, Chris Patten analyses what we know in each of these areas and argues how in each of them we could get somewhere we might want to be. Very little, he says, has turned out as we might have expected twenty years ago, but there is plenty we can still do. Readers of Patten's previous books will know what a penetrating analyst and engaging writer he is. This is his most ambitious and impressive yet.

Author Biography

Chris Patten, Chancellor of Oxford and Newcastle Universities, was until recently European Commissioner for External Relations. A former MP, he is best known for being the last Governor of Hong Kong and at one time, Chairman of the Conservative Party. His previous publications include East and West (1998) and Not Quite the Diplomat (2005).