THE RAGING 2020S

The world needs a book that explains the current car crash at the intersection of business, government and everyday people. This is that book.

Starting with the industrial revolution, companies have held the power to shape our daily lives in ways both positive and negative, while the state held the power to make them fall in line, and the people held the power to choose their leaders. This compact, through ups and downs, stood firm for 150 years. But in the latest wave of globalization, the balance has shaken loose.

As the market consolidates under fewer and larger companies, the lines between Walmart and the Halls of Congress has become razor thin. It's in the interest of private companies to behave like nations – to invest in defense, foreign contracts, data mining, and intelligence. And when the government is bogged down in bureaucratic negotiations and partisan wars, unable to act on healthcare, wage increases, and climate change, people begin to look to nimble, powerful companies to solve these problems – and to be our moral standard-bearers.

But all is not lost. As Walter Isaacson said about Ross's first book, "The future is already hitting us, and Ross shows how it can be exciting rather than frightening.”

Ross weaves interviews with the world's most influential thinkers into fascinating stories of corporate activism and malfeasance, government failure and renewal, and innovative economic and political models being implemented around the world, to propose a new social contract – one that benefits workers and everyday citizens in the face of unprecedented global change.

Alec Ross is one of the world's leading experts on innovation. Author of New York Times-bestselling The Industries of the Future, he is currently a Visiting Professor at King's College London and a Board Partner at Amplo, a global venture capital firm. He was as a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins University and a Senior Fellow at the Columbia University School of International & Public Affairs. During the Obama Administration, he served as Senior Advisor for Innovation to the Secretary of State, to help modernize the practice of diplomacy and advance America's foreign policy interests. He also served as the Convener for the Technology & Media Policy Committee on Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and on the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team.