Children of a Modest Star: Planetary Thinking for an Age of Crises: A Conversation with author Nils Gilman

About the Talk: Deadly viruses, climate-changing carbon molecules, and harmful pollutants cross the globe unimpeded by national borders. While the consequences of these flows range across scales, from the local to the planetary, the authority and resources to manage them are concentrated mainly at one level: the nation-state. This profound mismatch is leading to cascading systemic failures.

In this talk, based on his groundbreaking book, Children of a Modest Star (co-authored with Jonathan Blake), Gilman will present a clear-eyed and urgent vision for a new system of political governance capable of stabilizing a planet in crisis. Gilman especially looks forward to engaging in conversation with participants about these important matters.

About the Speaker: Nils Gilman is currently Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Programs at the Berggruen Institute. He has previously worked as associate chancellor at the University of California, Berkeley, as research director and scenario planner at the Monitor Group and Global Business Network, and at various enterprise software companies including Salesforce.com. In addition to Children of a Modest Star, he has also authored Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold War America (2004) and Deviant Globalization: Black Market Economy in the 21st Century (2011). He holds a bachelors, masters, and doctorate in history from U.C. Berkeley.

 Light refreshments will be provided and a book-signing will follow the talk.