Major new book series answers the world’s biggest challenges

July 27, 2012 - PRLog -- Remember the Soviet Union? The Cold War? Can you recall when there was debt, dictatorship and violent death across Latin America and China? What about apartheid, stagflation, sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, and smallpox?

These and other horrors afflicted the world for decades during the 20th Century but by the turn of the last millennium they had mostly melted away. Despite this remarkable progress one crucial lesson is often forgotten: the biggest problems in the world all have answers.
The first four titles in the series, which was published on 19th July 2012, answer the challenges posed by: terrorism, the global economy, the need for sustainability, and North Korea.

How do you solve a problem like Korea?

This series provides an exciting and accessible guide to some of the world’s greatest challenges and explain how they can be answered. For example:

•   The world economy badly needs growth and stability – this can be achieved by combining new, formal institutions together with roles for new actors (e.g. emerging ‘growth’ economies), regulation and bold action by Western economies.

•   Terrorism can be reduced and removed as a source of permanent anxiety but it requires coordination, clear policy, an understanding of the challenges, an end to failing or counter-productive tactics, and the successful application of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power in the right way, at the right time.

•   Sustainability issues threaten to swamp humanity, not only by depleting limited resources – from water to minerals – but also by producing waste materials. The solutions lie with greater understanding of the need for action combined with a combination of measures at every level of society: from intergovernmental conferences to each individual.

•   North Korea is a hermit kingdom that has nuclear weapons, one of the largest armies in the world, a sense of grievance, a cult of personality, and a tendency to attack South Korea. The answer lies with its neighbours – notably China – and their ability to patiently engage with the North, as well as with the population of Korea and even the new regime of Kim Jong-un.

Answering these challenges starts by understanding the issues and taking a patient, objective view of the issues. It also requires expert analysis and bold, inventive and constructive thinking.

That is the focus for this series and each book has the same three-part format looking at:
•   The challenge – what it is, how it arose, why it matters and where we are at the moment.

•   The answers – possible solutions and, where relevant, an explanation of the different schools of thought or different types of solution.  

•   The future – getting the right solution is one thing, making it happen is quite another. This section looks at the prospects for success and change. How likely is it that the challenge will be successfully addressed?

Everyone wants to know the answer. And when the questions include some of the interesting or pressing issues of our times, then interest in the answers is intense.

About the series editor
The series is edited by Jeremy Kourdi, a writer, executive coach and former Senior Vice-President with The Economist Group. He is the founder of Entendeo (www.Entendeo.com) and is the author of 25 books translated into 15 languages. Jeremy Kourdi has a Masters degree in International Relations and occasionally appears as a commentator on the BBC as well as in print and other online media.

The complete answers series available at http://www.business-bookshop.co.uk