A global war for young talent amidst our turbulent “climatography”
Simon & Schuster
MOVE: The Forces Uprooting Us
By Parag Khanna
On sale date: 5 October 2021
"A nuanced discussion of the increasing importance of free movement across the planet..... Nativists will hate it, but no matter. Khanna makes an urgent, powerful argument for more open international borders." - Kirkus (starred review)
A global war for young talent amidst our turbulent “climatography”
Parag Khanna wants to remap America—and the world. Biden’s Infrastructure Plan and the Green New Deal need to do more than just repair roads and deploy broadband Internet. They need to encourage significant relocation of America’s population: a new Manifest Destiny. In an era beset by relentless disruptions such as automation and climate change, Americans need to recognize that physical mobility is the surest pathway to socio-economic mobility. It’s time for a new American Dream--one defined by mobility and skills, not homes and degrees.
In his bracing new book MOVE: The Forces Uprooting Us, renowned globalization scholar Parag Khanna takes us near and far into the post-pandemic future when humanity gets moving again. Khanna’s prescriptions are bold, essential, and practical:
- Rather than taxpayers subsidizing people to remain in unlivable areas prone to floods, forest fires, droughts, and rising sea levels, we should be building sustainable new settlements of movable 3D printed houses in the Great Lakes, Inland West, and Inner Atlantic regions.
- America’s 150 million youth—the nation’s future—shouldn’t be stuck in dead-end retail gigs but circulating in electric RVs, remotely learning coding and engineering, following “Tinder for jobs” apps that match skills to work.
- As the nation’s population ages and peaks at the same time, America needs a massive immigration overhaul in which skills and merit leads directly to citizenship.
Catch Parag’s feature Aspen Ideas Festival talk here!
MOVE is the first book to reveal where we will go to survive climate change.
The entire world is suffering from a massive misalignment of natural resources, borders, infrastructure, and people. Yet as we reach a “peak humanity” population of 9 billion with cascading economic crises, political unrest, and climate change, four billion youth are eagerly voting with their feet, abandoning failing states in favor of welcoming and livable societies from Canada to Germany to Japan. Khanna predicts that in the years ahead, nationalist populism will give way to a relentless war for young talent as countries seek able-bodied, tax-paying migrants to avoid demographic doom. After the Great Lockdown, we have a unique opportunity to use our technological prowess to transcend today’s antiquated cartography and evolve towards Parag’s vision of “Civilization 3.0,” a mobile and sustainable global society.
Parag Khanna is the founder and managing partner of FutureMap, a global strategic advisory firm that works with far-sighted governments and companies. FutureMap’s proprietary Climate Alpha software produces suitability forecasts for America’s 3,000 counties and a growing number of countries. Khanna is the internationally bestselling author of seven books including Connectography and The Future Is Asian. He deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as a senior geopolitical advisor to US Special Operations Forces, has advised the US National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends program, and been a fellow at Brookings and New America. Parag holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Born in India and raised in the UAE, New York, and Germany, he has traveled to more than 150 countries and is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.
Advanced praise for MOVE
“KHANNA CUTS THROUGH THE CLUTTER LIKE NO ONE ELSE…Without fundamentally rethinking our economic models, the colliding demographic, environmental, and political crises many countries face will snowball into economic disasters.”
-- Nouriel Roubini, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Crisis Economics
“THOUGHT PROVOKING…As this book demonstrates, the climate crisis is just one of many forces that will have humans more on the move this century.”
-- Bill McKibben, New York Times bestselling author of Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
“A REAL EYE-OPENER…Move makes clear that, though ‘mobility’ can be for some a desperate flight for refuge, it’s also—for younger generations growing into a multi-cultural, one-planet civilization—a new expression of possibility.”
-- Kim Stanley Robinson, Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards and New York Times bestselling author of Ministry for the Future
“IMPRESSIVE…In Move, Parag Khanna proves again why he is one of the world's most incisive thinkers….The book’s great accomplishment is that it not only reveals what will soon be upon us, but what lies ahead for our children and grandchildren.”
-- Alec Ross, New York Times bestselling author of The Industries of the Future
“NO ONE KNOWS MORE ABOUT HOW GLOBAL CONNECTIVITY WORKS… Here Khanna examines exactly how the coming massive migrations away from increasing droughts and toward jobs can play out to humanity’s great benefit—or great harm.”
--Stewart Brand, creator of the Whole Earth Catalog
"SCINTILLATING… A clear-eyed, unapologetic defense of the right to migrate."
-- Suketu Mehta, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Maximum City and This Land is Our Land
“BRILLIANT…Move describes a world shaped not just by democracy or capitalism, but, increasingly, by migration.”
-- Balaji S. Srinivasan, former CTO of Coinbase and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz
“ILLUMINATES A HOST OF NEW REALITIES…Parag Khanna’s MOVE outlines the forces creating a new geography of opportunity.”
-- Richard Florida, bestselling author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The New Urban Crisis
“AUTHORITATIVE AND FACT FILLED YET PLEASURABLE TO READ… A thorough investigation of the history of human migration and a discerning estimate of its probable future.”
-- Martin Gray, author of Sacred Earth and creator of SacredSites.com
“DARING, SMART, UNFORGETTABLE .... A rich exploration of our times and the way forward.”
-- Elif Shafak, author of the Booker Prize-shortlisted Ten Minutes Forty Eight Seconds in This Strange World
“A PROVOCATIVE VISION... Challenges us to rethink how, where and with whom we will inhabit the planet.”
-- Rahul Mehrotra, Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Design
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