Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown & Michael Spence on Permacrisis

Three internationally respected and experienced thinkers have come together for Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix a Fractured World, and this September we will be welcoming the Former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, alongside one of his co-authors, Michael Spence, to Younger Hall! It's sure to be a fascinating evening.

Gordon, Michael, and Mohamed found that their pandemic Zooms increasingly focused on a cascade of crises: sputtering growth, surging inflation, poor policy responses, an escalating climate emergency, worsening inequality, increasing nationalism and a decline in global co-operation.

They shared their fears and frustrations. And the more they talked, the more they realised that while past mistakes had set the world on this bumpy course, a better path leading to a brighter future exists. Informed by their different perspectives, they sought a common goal: achievable solutions to fix our fractured world. This book is the product of that thinking.

At the heart of today's permacrisis are broken approaches to growth, economic management, and governance. While these approaches are broken, they are not beyond repair. An explanation of where we've gone wrong, and a provocative, inspiring plan to do nothing less than change the world, Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix a Fractured World, written with Reid Lidow, sets out how we can prevent crises and better manage the future for the benefit of the many and not the few.

The longer a problem goes unresolved, the worse it will get; that's what happens in a permacrisis - and that's why we must act now.

Gordon Brown was Chancellor of the Exchequer, a role he held for more than a decade, then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Today he is fully-engaged in international development work serving as the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education where he is spearheading efforts to deliver a quality and inclusive education for all of the world's children, as well as the World Health Organization's Ambassador for Global Health Finance.

Mohamed El-Erian has been at the forefront of economics and finance for decades and brings considerable private sector experience and know-how to discussions, as well as from his time at the International Monetary Fund. He currently serves as President of Queens' College, Cambridge and is also the chief economic advisor at Allianz, the corporate parent of PIMCO where he was CEO and co-CIO.

Michael Spence has done it all, from serving as Dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business to advising some of the world's leading companies and governments. He is currently a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and Philip H. Knight Professor Emeritus at Stanford Graduate School of Business.