Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization
VIEW EVENT DETAILSMeet the Author
Evening Presentation by PARAG KHANNA, Author & Senior Research Fellow, Centre on Asia and Globalisation, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore
Drinks Reception 6:30pm;
Presentation 7:00pm;
Close 8:00pm
Imagine a map of the world in your mind. Now erase all the borderlines and replace these with new lines connecting regions. Those new lines represent highways, railways, canals, internet cables and electricity grids - in a word, connectivity. According to global strategist and author, Parag Khanna, we are hurtling into a future shaped less by countries than by supply chains - a world in which the most connected powers and people will win. “Connectography” is a bracing and authoritative guide to what the author terms our "global network civilization". Travelling from Ukraine to Iran, Mongolia to North Korea, and the Arctic Circle to the South China Sea, Mr. Khanna shows how a tug-of-war over pipelines, railways and internet cables is what conflict looks like today. Yet the increase in connectivity heralds not only an era of competition but also stability like never before. He argues that new energy discoveries and technologies have eliminated the need for resource wars; ambitious new railways and electricity grids are unscrambling Africa's fraught colonial borders; even the Arab world is evolving a more peaceful map as it builds resource infrastructures across its war-torn landscape. Beneath the chaos of a world that appears to be falling apart is a new foundation of connectivity pulling it together.
Parag Khanna is a leading global strategist and best-selling author. He is a CNN Global Contributor and Senior Research Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy’s Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the National University of Singapore. He is also Managing Partner of Hybrid Reality, a boutique geostrategic advisory firm, and Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Factotum, a content branding agency. Mr. Khanna's books include “Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization”, “How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance” and “The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order”. In 2008, Mr. Khanna was named one of Esquire’s “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century” and is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics.
Supporting Organization:
City University of Hong Kong
Event Details
Asia Society Hong Kong Center, 9 Justice Drive, Admiralty