The Age of the Unthinkable

Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us And What We Can Do About It

By: Joshua Cooper Ramo

Narrated by: Joshua Cooper Ramo

Today the very ideas that made America great imperil its future. Our plans go awry and policies fail. History's grandest war against terrorism creates more terrorists. Global capitalism, intended to improve lives, increases the gap between rich and poor. Decisions made to stem a financial crisis guarantee its worsening. Environmental strategies to protect species lead to their extinction. The traditional physics of power has been replaced by something radically different.

In The Age of the Unthinkable, Joshua Cooper Ramo puts forth a revelatory new model for understanding our dangerously unpredictable world. Drawing upon history, economics, complexity theory, psychology, immunology, and the science of networks, he describes a new landscape of inherent unpredictability -- and remarkable, wonderful possibility.

Transformational!

This is one of those “wow” books. It contains real truth that speaks to you. It’s a classic, a diamond in the rough. It’s deep though, I’m going to read it in print as well.

You have to be open Minded

Some did not give this book good ratings, however, in order to understand where the author is coming from, one must have lived overseas or at least have some insight into some of the cultures and other groups the author refers to. Reading this book as I write this review, one cant help notice that what the author talks about regarding change, is actually taking place across the world and the USA, today. If you prefer to live in an image of the world as it was portrayed to you by the Media, Corporations and narrow minded individuals, this book is not for you, this book is for those who would like to view the world from a diferent perspective.

Sheds light on a rapidly changing world

Would you listen to The Age of the Unthinkable again? Why?

Actually, this was my second listen to The Age of the Unthinkable. There's a lot of ideas that make you re-think the way things are and how our society is approaching solutions in all the wrong ways. It's certainly one of those books that on second review, with a perspective slightly altered from the first reading begins to click the second time around.

Any additional comments?

We're in a new era where both the threats to our society and the opportunities in business are changing at an almost incomprehensible pace. Ramo explains why our old ways of looking at this change don't fit the world as we know it anymore. Mash ups of technology, the rate of information exchange, the transformation from the cold war to the age of terrorism; they all play havoc with the old ways of thinking. Ramo explains the change and takes steps to talk about solutions in making out systems of support more robust and resilient rather than simply trying to predict the next threat or change.

Thinkable

The author provides some very interesting perspectives and ideas about our age. It is well worth the read.

Delightfully though-provoking!

I recently saw Ramo give a talk on China and Chinese politics, and found it very interesting to see some of the thoughts he presented there in a greater context. In this book he not only goes to some really interesting places and speaks to some fascinating people - he also "connects the dots" in a way that I found utterly fascinating - even now, more than half a decade after the book was published.