Humanity is now faced with an array of global challenges we are ill equipped to handle. Climate change and nuclear proliferation, food security and global pandemic disease each concern us all. But we lack the global institutions through which they might be solved. And these institutions are lacking because most people put the needs of their own groups first. While the great challenges of the twenty-first century are largely global, few people think of themselves as global citizens. And few bring the same balance and maturity to global issues that they do to more national concerns.
The world is vast and overwhelming. Making sense of it requires greater knowledge, greater empathy, and greater ethical commitments. This process might best be described as the globalization of mind, and it is just getting under way. But thinking globally will become easier as global interconnectivity increases, as global institutions grow in scope, and as more people are exposed to greater human diversity and devote themselves to solving global challenges. Convergence: The Globalization of Mind is a magisterial exploration of the challenges that lie in wait, raising as many questions as it answers, and all the while deepening the readers' own global thinking.