Powerful Times has promise as you plow through the first handful of chapters. I've done quite a bit of future `ideating' mostly for product innovation to have concepts like `clarity vs craziness' - something we called, `synthesized sense-making' at work - and `technology acceleration vs pushback' - resonate with me. His arguments make sense and they feel like they're pointing to a powerful conclusion.

And then, something happens that makes you distrust everything you haven't researched yourself. For me, it was when that old bogie-man, "global warming", came out under the heading, `people and planet'.

I don't know if you have a poster of Al Gore in your dorm room or not, but when confronted with often-quoted-but-usually-disproved data points like polar ice melting (except where it's thickening), sea levels rising (plate tectonics, anyone?), and "NASA" saying the ten warmest years on record have all happened in the past twenty years (except for the entire decade of the 30's), I start to doubt everything else I've just read. (Take the time to read Sen. James Inhofe's speech on Capitol Hill from 9/25/06. He's the Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee at the epw dot senate dot gov website - you'll have to hunt for it from there, as Amazon doesn't like reviewers to embed URL's. Most all of the current hype on global warming gets pretty clearly debunked here. And if that wasn't enough fun, pick up Michael Critchton's `State of Fear'. There's just too much hysteria against a backdrop of conflicting data and more conflicting politics to buy this hook, line and sinker).

After you fully defoliate the chapter on global warming, you are then faced with vignettes on how China is poised to offer the world advances in environmental conservation. Is it just me, or do you also recall hearing that a few hundred cities in China had air so bad you needed a catalytic converter just to breathe normally? Given China's record, it's hard to see anything done on an environmentally sustainable basis for its own sake.

So if I can't buy the stories on global warming or Chinese environmental stewardship, what am I to do with vignettes on the "African Renaissance" in scientific research? Frankly, I don't know whether there's any merit to this one or not, but his track record is getting a bit suspect at this point. (It's funny, I'm also reading Robert Young Pelton's `World's Most Dangerous Places', so the difference in perspective leads one to pause. I don't know about you, but my money at this point is on Pelton).

In "Prosperity and Decline", we're told that Brazil's "experiment in free trade" of violating patent laws on pharmaceuticals to provide AIDS drugs for free is a `vindicated' strategy because of lives saved and thus represents a bold new twist on free trade. Huh? I'm all for saving lives, but maybe the Brazilian government would pick up the tab next time? I take it that Hwa Wei's pirating Cisco software is excused because the domestic Chinese market now enjoys US-style router technology without all those pesky big invoices.

This is the second great red flag of the book - a huge disconnect in critical judgment. However, let's continue to suspend disbelief and plunge ahead with our story.

After two chapters that feel a bit out of place - governance and innovation - we get into three potential world scenarios, all of which are plausible in the author's view: "The New American Century", "Patchwork Powers", and "Emergence".

"The New American Century" assumes a greater American role in world affairs, with the ascendance of "American Values" on the global stage as the center piece. Free trade, democracy, the pursuit of happiness, individual freedom, etc., all presented against the sinister backdrop of American military might. You almost had us there.

"Patchwork Powers" operates under the assumption that the world always knew George W. Bush was up to no good, that the war on terror was illegal, and now "America has been put in its place". In other words, the Democratic National Committee platform. This scenario unfolds with regional powers - India, China, and China - taking a greater role, and Europe pretty much sinking beneath the waves. The superpower is dead. Long live the Junior Varsity.

"Emergence" illustrates the rise of the individual, flash-mobbing their way to political primacy, with nations crashing under their own bureaucratic hubris. Innovation sky-rockets for some reason, open source replaces intellectual property rights and terrorism runs amok. This is pretty close to hell, unless your vision of the future looks like "Blade Runner".

The number of not-very-subtle digs at the US and its president become a bit tedious. Sure, I'm biased -- I pay property taxes, travel internationally, and have a family, which makes me like things like stable currencies, the rule of law, economic growth. The irony, given the author's clear anti-American biases, is that "The New American Century" is the only optimistic scenario he presents. The reasonable idea that a "New American Century" with China beginning to take baby steps towards a leadership role, India being "open for business", and Middle East and Latin America (hopefully) finding their way towards real representative government and stable economic policy is not just possible, but hopefully our collective goal. The other scenarios all sound like a global retreat from where we are today - economically, politically, and socially.

The first half of the book gets four stars. The middle needed an editor. The last few get a two. I'll round up to a three.

Airplane read. Book is current ... data based. Diverse news roundup with links to future implications. Can't recall any high concept take aways.

Buy it soon ... not much shelf life

Powerful Times is an examination of what the author presents as seven powerful dynamic tensions that will fundamentally reshape human life. What are these seven tensions? Some we are already seeing regularly in the news as the conflicts between the secular and the sacred. Others are also obvious like the tension between clarity and craziness. Still others become fascinating in the way the author develops them; like power and vulnerability, technology acceleration and pushback, intangible and physical economics, prosperity and decline, and people and planet. This is an in-depth exploration of the challenges and changes of governance and innovation. One of the more interesting ideas presented here are what the author sees as the three different scenarios for potential world orders that might evolve as a result of these tensions. This is a bold look at the forces molding our world as we know it and how they will change that world in the near future. Powerful Times is an interesting read and recommended to business and civic leaders at all levels.