To thrive in the twenty-first century, we all need to understand the challenges coming our way. And start adapting, now.
Tom is the Principal of Hertford College, University of Oxford. He served as the foreign policy advisor to Prime Ministers Blair, Brown and Cameron, before becoming British Ambassador to Lebanon (2011-15) and a Visiting Professor at NYU (2015-20). Tom is the author of the bestselling Naked Diplomacy: Power & Statecraft in the Digital Age (2016) and Ten Survival Skills for a World in Flux (Harper Collins, February 2022). Forthcoming publications include his first novel, The Ambassador (Canelo, August 2022).
He led reviews of the modernisation of the FCO (2016); the future of the UN (2017) and the future of learning (2019). He is a former chair of the international board of the UK's Creative Industries Federation, adviser to businesses, academies and NGOs, and a member of the Global Tech Panel. He writes for the NYT, Prospect, Foreign Policy, The National and others, is a regular interviewee on BBC, Sky, CNN and has been profiled by the BBC, Arab News and more. His Foundation for Opportunity supports good people doing good things in public life.
To thrive in the twenty-first century, we all need to understand the challenges coming our way. And start adapting, now.
There are major, overlapping, global crises ahead of humanity: climate change, mass migration, new warfare, big tech, further pandemics, authoritarian capitalism. Rather than be daunted, this book charts a way that we can respond. With expertise from his work at the highest levels of international politics, education, activism and business, Tom Fletcher offers a practical manifesto that can help us transform the way we learn, live and work together.
Among its key survival skills, this book offers ideas on how we renew education, restore society and reimagine the future. It helps us chart a course to take back control, find purpose, and become better ancestors. It helps us learn the language of technology – without thinking like computers. It offers 39 steps that each of us can start to take today to boost our survivability.
Vital, practical and accessible, this is a book about how we can anticipate the threats and opportunities of tomorrow and be ready for them – individually and collectively.
