The World Is Vertical: How Technology Is Remaking Globalization

Right now, as you read this, the following is taking place: Russia is building its own “sovereign internet” that is independent of the worldwide web; India is bending technology companies to its will to protect its future sovereignty; and the European Union (EU) is building its own platforms to throw out American technology.What do all of these events have in common? They signal an end to globalization in its current form. Instead of the world being open, accessible and integrated, as it has been for decades, now it is becoming full of technology-based walls and barriers. Because of technology, the world is splitting, dividing and fracturing at almost every level. The world has become vertical.The vertical world is a new paradigm from the mind of Abishur Prakash, the world's top geopolitical futurist.In this book, Prakash tells the story of how nations are using technology to rapidly “unplug” from the established order and chart new, independent paths for themselves. At the same time, technology firms, the new global stakeholders, are challenging governments for control of the world. This book explores how the systems, institutions and ideas that have governed the world since the end of World War II are starting to collapse, and what is rising in their place.With technology, the world is moving in a direction where economies and societies are starting to disconnect from one another and where cultures and alliances are breaking apart. Now, new “lines” are being drawn everywhere - from immigration to market access to global trade - that will change the future in unfamiliar ways.From heads of state to Fortune 500 companies to megacities, the strategies of everyone will be reconfigured by the vertical world. The new geography of the world is vertical. It will challenge the fortunes and fates of everybody. Read more