The Fourth Revolution, John Micklethwait
The Fourth Revolution, John Micklethwait
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The Fourth Revolution
The Global Race to Reinvent the State

Author: John Micklethwait, Adrian Wooldridge

Narrator: Chris Sorensen

Unabridged: 10 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 05/15/2014


Synopsis

From the bestselling authors of The Right Nation , a visionary argument that our current crisis in government is nothing less than the fourth radical transition in the history of the nation-state Dysfunctional government: It' s become a clichE, and most of us are resigned to the fact that nothing is ever going to change. As John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge show us, that is a seriously limited view of things. In fact, there have been three great revolutions in government in the history of the modern world. The West has led these revolutions, but now we are in the midst of a fourth revolution, and it is Western government that is in danger of being left behind. Now, things really are different. The West' s debt load is unsustainable. The developing world has harvested the low-hanging fruits. Industrialization has transformed all the peasant economies it had left to transform, and the toxic side effects of rapid developing world growth are adding to the bill. From Washington to Detroit, from Brasilia to New Delhi, there is a dual crisis of political legitimacy and political effectiveness. The Fourth Revolution crystallizes the scope of the crisis and points forward to our future. The authors enjoy extraordinary access to influential figures and forces the world over, and the book is a global tour of the innovators in how power is to be wielded. The age of big government is over; the age of smart government has begun. Many of the ideas the authors discuss seem outlandish now, but the center of gravity is moving quickly. This tour drives home a powerful argument: that countries' success depends overwhelmingly on their ability to reinvent the state. And that much of the West-- and particularly the United States-- is failing badly in its task. China is making rapid progress with government reform at the same time as America is falling badly behind. Washington is gridlocked, and America is in danger of squandering its huge advantages from its powerful economy because of failing government. And flailing democracies like India look enviously at China' s state-of-the-art airports and expanding universities. The race to get government right is not just a race of efficiency. It is a race to see which political values will triumph in the twenty-first century-- the liberal values of democracy and liberty or the authoritarian values of command and control. The stakes could not be higher.

About John Micklethwait

John Micklethwait is the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg and was previously editor-in-chief at The Economist.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Andrew on August 23, 2014

There are three books contained within this text. Two work, one doesn't, which leaves the overall manuscript feeling somewhat less than the sum of its parts. The first is a highly readable account of the development of the modern Western state. In around 100 pages, the authors provide an engaging ta......more

Goodreads review by Jonathon on May 26, 2014

This book came across to me as uneven. It is a book about the challenges the state faces in the 21st Century and its history and discussions of concrete problems and possible solutions are engaging. I learnt something on nearly every page. Where I found it lacking was in the periodical interjection......more

Goodreads review by Ondrej on July 16, 2014

Authors openly admit what their ideologies are, specifically liberals, but not libertarians. That alone hinted at a possible lack of bias in throughout the book and that has largely been delivered. We get a nice overview of laissez-faire tendencies as well as the rise of the welfare state without an......more

Goodreads review by Glen on May 08, 2014

I won this in a goodreads firstreads drawing. This is a thinkpiece of a book, considering the history, the present status, and the future of the state. The history section is a pretty interesting overview, although they missed Harry Kessler's idea of the Aesthetic state. They also go out of their way......more

Goodreads review by Shaun on December 28, 2014

A decent read but heavily skewed with opinion.......more