STS Class Guides

With his original eightfold approach, Eugene Bardach encapsulates more than 35 years of teaching students effective, accurate and persuasive policy analysis. This bestselling handbook presents dozens of concrete tips, interesting case studies and step-by-step strategies for the budding analyst as well as the seasoned professional. In this new edition, Bardach clarifies some of the book′s exposition, paying particular attention to "design problems" and the choice of a "base case". Up-to-date examples, including a new set of environmental problems, make the book even more engaging. Readers will also appreciate a sample document of real world policy analysis, a primer in how to "talk the talk" of policy analysis, and a cheat sheet of strategies for solving a host of policy problems.

INSTANTNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "One of the most important books I've ever read--an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world." - Bill Gates "Hans Rosling tells the story of 'the secret silent miracle of human progress' as only he can. ButFactfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly."--Melinda Gates "Factfulness by Hans Rosling, an outstanding international public health expert, is a hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases." - Former U.S. President Barack Obama Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends--what percentage of the world's population live in poverty; why the world's population is increasing; how many girls finish school--we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. InFactfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offersa radical new explanation of why this happens. They revealthe ten instincts that distort our perspective--from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version ofus andthem) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse). Our problem is that we don't know what we don't know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn't mean there aren't real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories,Factfulnessis an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future. --- "This book is my last battle in my life-long mission to fight devastating ignorance...Previously I armed myself with huge data sets, eye-opening software, an energetic learning style and a Swedish bayonet for sword-swallowing. It wasn't enough. But I hope this book will be." Hans Rosling, February 2017.

The author of the Wilson Center's "Grand Strategy Project" reveals his plan to put American citizens back to work - creating wealth instead of debt, and leading the transition to sustainability.THE NEW GRAND STRATEGY tells the story of a plan, born within the Pentagon, to recapture America's greatness at home and abroad by elevating sustainability as our new strategic imperative. It aligns our enduring national interests of prosperity and security with a new framework that addresses pressing economic, social, and environmental issues at home, tapping into a trillion-dollar market demand for walkable communities, regenerative agriculture and resource productivity. It is an inspiring vision of what's possible when Americans hold a collective view of the future and come together to bring it to reality.This is no idealistic pipe dream or wonky policy prescription. The story that unfolds in this book weaves together hard-nosed economic analysis, a clear-eyed study of demographic and societal shifts, the realities of climate change and resource scarcity, a risk-based assessment of America's challenges and opportunities, and on-the-ground reporting of how much this is already unfolding throughout the country. By rediscovering the power and discipline of grand strategy-and taking responsibility for our future-America can reimagine the American dream and once again take on "the cause of all mankind."Released during one of America's most divisive presidential election campaigns, THE NEW GRAND STRATEGY avoids the partisan rhetoric dividing our nation today. Instead of placing blame, it offers a clear, pragmatic plan that can unite Americans and launch a new era of prosperity and security.

From the visionary bestselling author of The Second World and How to Run the World comes a bracing and authoritative guide to a future shaped less by national borders than by global supply chains, a world in which the most connected powers--and people--will win. Connectivity is the most revolutionary force of the twenty-first century. Mankind is reengineering the planet, investing up to ten trillion dollars per year in transportation, energy, and communications infrastructure linking the world's burgeoning megacities together. This has profound consequences for geopolitics, economics, demographics, the environment, and social identity. Connectivity, not geography, is our destiny. In Connectography, visionary strategist Parag Khanna travels from Ukraine to Iran, Mongolia to North Korea, Pakistan to Nigeria, and across the Arctic Circle and the South China Sea to explain the rapid and unprecedented changes affecting every part of the planet. He shows how militaries are deployed to protect supply chains as much as borders, and how nations are less at war over territory than engaged in tugs-of-war over pipelines, railways, shipping lanes, and Internet cables. The new arms race is to connect to the most markets--a race China is now winning, having launched a wave of infrastructure investments to unite Eurasia around its new Silk Roads. The United States can only regain ground by fusing with its neighbors into a super-continental North American Union of shared resources and prosperity. Connectography offers a unique and hopeful vision for the future. Khanna argues that new energy discoveries and technologies have eliminated the need for resource wars; ambitious transport corridors and power grids are unscrambling Africa's fraught colonial borders; even the Arab world is evolving a more peaceful map as it builds resource and trade routes across its war-torn landscape. At the same time, thriving hubs such as Singapore and Dubai are injecting dynamism into young and heavily populated regions, cyber-communities empower commerce across vast distances, and the world's ballooning financial assets are being wisely invested into building an inclusive global society. Beneath the chaos of a world that appears to be falling apart is a new foundation of connectivity pulling it together. Praise for Connectography "Incredible . . . With the world rapidly changing and urbanizing, [Khanna's] proposals might be the best way to confront a radically different future."--The Washington Post "Clear and coherent . . . a well-researched account of how companies are weaving ever more complicated supply chains that pull the world together even as they squeeze out inefficiencies. . . . [He] has succeeded in demonstrating that the forces of globalization are winning."--Adrian Woolridge, The Wall Street Journal "Bold . . . With an eye for vivid details, Khanna has . . . produced an engaging geopolitical travelogue."--Foreign Affairs "For those who fear that the world is becoming too inward-looking, Connectography is a refreshing, optimistic vision."--The Economist "Connectivity has become a basic human right, and gives everyone on the planet the opportunity to provide for their family and contribute to our shared future. Connectography charts the future of this connected world."--Marc Andreessen, general partner, Andreessen Horowitz "Khanna's scholarship and foresight are world-class. A must-read for the next president."--Chuck Hagel, former U.S. secretary of defense

In recent years, Google's autonomous cars have logged thousands of miles on American highways and IBM's Watson trounced the best human Jeopardy! players. Digital technologies--with hardware, software, and networks at their core--will in the near future diagnose diseases more accurately than doctors can, apply enormous data sets to transform retailing, and accomplish many tasks once considered uniquely human.In The Second Machine Age MIT's Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee--two thinkers at the forefront of their field--reveal the forces driving the reinvention of our lives and our economy. As the full impact of digital technologies is felt, we will realize immense bounty in the form of dazzling personal technology, advanced infrastructure, and near-boundless access to the cultural items that enrich our lives.Amid this bounty will also be wrenching change. Professions of all kinds--from lawyers to truck drivers--will be forever upended. Companies will be forced to transform or die. Recent economic indicators reflect this shift: fewer people are working, and wages are falling even as productivity and profits soar.Drawing on years of research and up-to-the-minute trends, Brynjolfsson and McAfee identify the best strategies for survival and offer a new path to prosperity. These include revamping education so that it prepares people for the next economy instead of the last one, designing new collaborations that pair brute processing power with human ingenuity, and embracing policies that make sense in a radically transformed landscape.A fundamentally optimistic book, The Second Machine Age will alter how we think about issues of technological, societal, and economic progress.

This bestseller from leading economist Mariana Mazzucato, named by the New Republic, as one of the 'most important innovation thinkers' today is stirring up much-needed debates worldwide about the role of the State in innovation. Debunking the myth of a laggard State at odds with a dynamic private sector, Mazzucato reveals in case study after case study that in fact the opposite situation is true, with the private sector only finding the courage to invest after the entrepreneurial State has made the high-risk investments. Case studies include examples of the State, role in the 'green revolution', in biotech and pharmaceuticals, as well as several detailed examples from Silicon Valley. In an intensely researched chapter, she reveals that every technology that makes the iPhone so "smart" was government funded: the Internet, GPS, its touch-screen display and the voice-activated Siri. Mazzucato also controversially argues that in the history of modern capitalism the State has not only fixed market failures, but has also shaped and created markets, paving the way for new technologies and sectors that the private sector only ventures into once the initial risk has been assumed. And yet by not admitting the State's role we are socializing only the risks, while privatizing the rewards in fewer hands. This, she argues, hurts both future innovation and equity in modern-day capitalism. Named one of the '2013 Books of the Yea' by the 'Financial Times' and recommended by 'Forbes' in its 2013 'creative leaders' list, this book is a must-read for those interested in a refreshing and long-awaited take on the public vs. private sector debate.

"A consistently eye-opening history...not just a page-turner but consistently surprising." --The New York Times "A book that grips, informs, and alarms, finely researched and lucidly related." --John le Carr#65533; As cyber-attacks dominate front-page news, as hackers join terrorists on the list of global threats, and as top generals warn of a coming cyber war, few books are more timely and enlightening than Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War, by Slate columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Fred Kaplan. Kaplan probes the inner corridors of the National Security Agency, the beyond-top-secret cyber units in the Pentagon, the "information warfare" squads of the military services, and the national security debates in the White House, to tell this never-before-told story of the officers, policymakers, scientists, and spies who devised this new form of warfare and who have been planning--and (more often than people know) fighting--these wars for decades. From the 1991 Gulf War to conflicts in Haiti, Serbia, Syria, the former Soviet republics, Iraq, and Iran, where cyber warfare played a significant role, Dark Territory chronicles, in fascinating detail, a little-known past that shines an unsettling light on our future.

At the helm of both the CIA and NSA for 10 years, Michael Hayden participated in every major event in American national security, the fallout and consequences of which are still unfolding today. His perspective is truly unmatched, and his goals in writing this book are simple and unwavering: No apologies, no excuses, just what happened, and why. As candid as it is revelatory, Playing To The Edge is an essential history of our turbulent times that sheds new light on events and decisions we think we know well, coming at a time of heinous new threats and momentous change.

In the face of a President who lobs accusations without facts, evidence, or logic, truth tellers are under attack. Meanwhile, the world order is teetering on the brink. North Korea is on the verge of having a nuclear weapon that could reach all of the United States, Russians have mastered a new form of information warfare that undercuts democracy, and the role of China in the global community remains unclear. There will always be value to experience and expertise, devotion to facts, humility in the face of complexity, and a respect for ideas, but in this moment they seem more important, and more endangered, than they've ever been. American Intelligence-the ultimate truth teller-has a responsibility in a post-truth world beyond merely warning of external dangers, and in The Assault on Intelligence, General Michael Hayden takes up that urgent work with profound passion, insight and authority. It is a sobering vision. The American intelligence community is more at risk than is commonly understood, for every good reason. Civil war or societal collapse is not necessarily imminent or inevitable, but our democracy's core structures, processes, and attitudes are under great stress. Many of the premises on which we have based our understanding of governance are now challenged, eroded, or simply gone. And we have a President in office who responds to overwhelming evidence from the intelligence community that the Russians are, by all acceptable standards of cyber conflict, in a state of outright war against us, not by leading a strong response, but by shooting the messenger. There are fundamental changes afoot in the world and in this country. The Assault on Intelligence shows us what they are, reveals how crippled we've become in our capacity to address them, and points toward a series of effective responses. Because when we lose our intelligence, literally and figuratively, democracy dies.

The Internet has transformed the manner in which information is exchanged and business is conducted, arguably more than any other communication development in the past century. Despite its wide reach and powerful global influence, it is a medium uncontrolled by any one centralized system, organization, or governing body, a reality that has given rise to all manner of free-speech issues and cybersecurity concerns. The conflicts surrounding Internet governance are the new spaces where political and economic power is unfolding in the twenty-first century.   This all-important study by Laura DeNardis reveals the inner power structure already in place within the architectures and institutions of Internet governance. It provides a theoretical framework for Internet governance that takes into account the privatization of global power as well as the role of sovereign nations and international treaties. In addition, DeNardis explores what is at stake in open global controversies and stresses the responsibility of the public to actively engage in these debates, because Internet governance will ultimately determine Internet freedom.

Over the next 25 years global economic growth will come overwhelmingly from previously poor countries like China, India, and Brazil. In rich countries this "rise of the rest" scenario strikes fear into the many observers who see as its primary consequence a dangerous combination ofunrestrained consumerism, unsustainable resource depletion, and an undoing of U.S. economic dominance. In The Coming Prosperity, Philip Auerswald acknowledges the gravity of these issues but argues that the inclusion of the majority of the world's population in the global economy is, first and foremost, a source of unprecedented opportunity. Auerswald asserts that entrepreneurship is the key tomaking the most of the epochal transition in the global economy that will take place in the next quarter century. Inventors, innovators, and the creators of new ventures are introducing new technologies and expanding the range of global knowledge networks at a remarkable pace. The ensuingopportunities are abundant - not only for residents of previously poor countries, but also for people in the United States and other advanced, industrialized nations. The book's rigorous analysis of economic and historical trends is enlivened by the stories of entrepreneurs making an outsize difference: people like Karim Khoja, who led the creation of the first mobile phone company in Afghanistan; Leila Janah, who is bringing "outsourced" computer work to refugeecamps; and Victoria Hale, whose non-profit pharmaceutical company turned an orphan drug into a cure for kala-azar (black fever), one of South Asia's most deadly diseases. Engagingly written and bracingly realistic about the positive prospects of our historical moment, The Coming Prosperity sees beyond the doomsday scenarios to find a multitude of new opportunities in the expanding global economy.

The untold story of the global poor today: A distinguished expert and advisor to developing nations reveals how we've reduced poverty, increased incomes, improved health, curbed violence, and spread democracy--and how to ensure the improvements continue. We live today at a time of great progress for the global poor. Never before have so many people, in so many developing countries, made so much progress. Most people believe the opposite: that with a few exceptions like China and India, the majority of developing countries are hopelessly mired in deep poverty, led by inept dictators, and living with pervasive famine, widespread disease, constant violence, and little hope for change. But a major transformation is underway--and has been for two decades now. Since the early 1990s more than 700 million people have been lifted out of extreme poverty, six million fewer children die every year from disease, tens of millions more girls are in school, millions more people have access to clean water, and democracy--often fragile and imperfect--has become the norm in developing countries around the world. The Great Surge tells the remarkable story of this unprecedented economic, social, and political transformation. It shows how the end of the Cold War, the development of new technologies, globalization, courageous local leadership, and in some cases, good fortune, have combined to dramatically improve the fate of hundreds of millions of people in poor countries around the world. Most importantly, The Great Surge reveals how we can fight the changing tides of climate change, resource demand, economic and political mismanagement, and demographic pressures to accelerate the political, economic, and social development that has been helping the poorest of the poor around the world.

Today, nations increasingly carry out geopolitical combat through economic means. Policies governing everything from trade and investment to energy and exchange rates are wielded as tools to win diplomatic allies, punish adversaries, and coerce those in between. Not so in the United States, however. America still too often reaches for the gun over the purse to advance its interests abroad. The result is a playing field sharply tilting against the United States. In a cogent analysis of why the United States is losing ground as a world power and what it can do to reverse the trend, War by Other Means describes the statecraft of geoeconomics: the use of economic instruments to achieve geopolitical goals. Geoeconomics has long been a lever of America's foreign policy. But factors ranging from U.S. bureaucratic politics to theories separating economics from foreign policy leave America ill prepared for this new era of geoeconomic contest, while rising powers, especially China, are adapting rapidly. The rules-based system Americans set in place after World War II benefited the United States for decades, but now, as the system frays and global competitors take advantage, America is uniquely self-constrained. Its geoeconomic policies are hampered by neglect and resistance, leaving the United States overly reliant on traditional military force. Drawing on immense scholarship and government experience, Robert Blackwill and Jennifer Harris show that if America's policies are left uncorrected, the price in American blood and treasure will only grow. What geoeconomic warfare requires is a new vision of U.S. statecraft.