The Age of the Unthinkable

From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Former foreign editor of Time, Ramo pushes the reader into uncomfortable yet exhilarating places with controversial ways of thinking about global challenges (e.g., studying why Hezbollah is the most efficiently run Islamic militant group). His book, which lays bare the flaws in current thinking on everything from American political influence to the economy, is designed to change the physics of the way we think. Analyzing the failure of the Bush administration's Democratic Peace Theory and the fruitless efforts at a Mideast peace process, Ramo suggests that people must change the role they imagine for themselves from architects of a system they can control to gardeners in a living ecosystem. Ramo's message—that the most dynamic forces emerge from outside elite circles: geeks, iconoclasts and maligned populations—is persuasively argued. And while the author doesn't explicitly offer up solutions, he goads readers to approach problems in unexpected ways. His revelatory work argues that there must be some audacity in thinking before there can be any audacity of hope. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review "Former foreign editor of Time, Ramo pushes the reader into uncomfortable yet exhilarating places with controversial ways of thinking about global challenges...Persuasively argued...[Ramo's] revelatory work argues that there must be some audacity in thinking before there can be any audacity of hope." (Publishers Weekly ) "Thought-provoking....Ramo questions conventional thinking and provides fresh ideas-something we deeply need these days."-Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein