The book, by Jonathan Tepperman, excellently looks into the world situation, as many describe as hopeless, but sees many examples of extraordinary success in tackling big problems and presents them as ways which might also be used elsewhere. The common denominator of the successes is using pragmatism, not looking for perfection, but moving positively.
First, he sees the Terrible Ten problems being income inequality, immigration, corruption, Islamic extremism, civil war, the resource curse, energy, the middle income trap, gridlock I, and gridlock II.
As for possible improvements, I will cover these.....
Brazil's poverty.
Rather than lots of social programs, Lula introduced Bolsa Familia, just giving poor families cash with certain rules, like having the kids attend school so that future generations will have greater chances for success in addition to making the parents better consumers. And being cheaper for the government. Basically combining left wing goals with right wing, Milton Friedman economics......pragmatism.
Canada's need for more people, but white resistance, even from existing minorities.
So, rather than an incremental approach to immigration, mass immigration with strict vetting for those most likely to help the economy, resulting in a true multicultural nation. And with strong government support for multiculturalism, it made the nation more Canadian, not less.
Mexican gridlock.
Since the winning party had no majority, it created a plan to have all three major parties participate.
America's shale revolution
It really could only happen in the US because of such things like its bankruptcy laws which encourage risk taking, RE laws which sometimes allow residential land owners also mineral rights thus encouraging investment returns for average people, Wall Street lending/investment, environmental costs effectively managed, lesser population density than Europe, etc.
Other topics include Rwanda's overcoming its genocidal past, Indonesia overcoming terrorism, Singapore overcoming corruption and lack of natural resources and Botswana overcoming conflicts over new diamond riches.
Sure, it takes special situations, like good leaders or just good luck, but all counties or governments could gain insights from the book, hence I recommend it.
