Gordon Brown & Michael Spence

What do former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Nobel laureate Michael Spence have in common? For one thing, they will both be talking about their newly co-authored book Permacrisis at Ps & Gs Church on September 28th as part of our Autumn Literary Festival. Do join us for what will be an unforgettable evening with two titans of the political and policy-making world.

Permacrisis

Do you feel like we're in a permacrisis? Chances are you feel some anxiety about the state of the world. Gordon Brown, Mohamed A. El-Erian and Michael Spence certainly did.

Three of the most internationally respected and experienced thinkers of our time, they found their recent conversations increasingly focused on a cascade of crises: sputtering growth, surging inflation, poor policy responses, an escalating climate emergency, worsening inequality, increasing nationalism and a decline in global cooperation.

They shared their fears and frustrations. And the more they talked, the more they realised that while past mistakes had set the world on this bumpy course, a better path leading to a brighter future exists. Informed by their different perspectives, they sought a common goal: achievable solutions to fix our fractured world. This book is the product of that thinking.

At the heart of today's permacrisis are broken approaches to growth, economic management, and governance. While these approaches are broken, they are not beyond repair. An explanation of where we've gone wrong, and a provocative, inspiring plan to do nothing less than change the world, Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix a Fractured World, written with Reid Lidow, sets out how we can prevent crises and better manage the future for the benefit of the many and not the few.

The longer a problem goes unresolved, the worse it will get; that's what happens in a permacrisis - and that's why we must act now.

About Gordon Brown and Michael Spence

Gordon Brown was Chancellor of the Exchequer, a role he held for more than a decade, then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Today he is fully-engaged in international development work serving as the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education where he is spearheading efforts to deliver a quality and inclusive education for all of the world's children, as well as the World Health Organization's Ambassador for Global Health Finance.

Michael Spence has done it all, from serving as Dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business to advising some of the world's leading companies and governments. He is currently a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and Philip H. Knight Professor Emeritus at Stanford Graduate School of Business.