Two powerful forces measure their strength by acting upon globalization. One of them pushes globalization forward, while the other hinders its advance and promotes its decline.
In which of those directions should Latin America move? Uncertainty hinders the region's strategic vision. If the future entails re-launching of globalization, it seems obvious that Latin America should follow along its lines. However, if globalization were to embark on a declining phase and an endangered future, the region would need to look at other options.
Latin America, therefore, faces not only a dramatic uncertainty as a result of forces beyond its control, but also needs to anticipate unforeseen events to the best of its abilities, and react to or act upon them. Strategic reflection becomes imperative to manage both uncertainty and the possibility of rapid change.
This exercise in strategic reflection implies an immersion in fraught international surroundings, analyzing the forces that push for and against globalization, trying to measure their respective strength, convergence capacity, and potential impact. At the same time, it requires looking into the flaws, weaknesses and contradictions of such forces. With these elements in hand, it will be easier to envisage where the trends are leading to, and by extension, where Latin America may end up standing and which goals it should follow.
GLO (Global Labour Organisation) — Interview with Alfredo Toro Hardy about his new book on the Latin American view of the future of globalization.
NEW BOOKS network — Interview with Alfredo Toro Hardy about his new book on the globalization.
Sample Chapter(s)
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter Four: The Anti-Globalizers
Contents:
- Latin America: A Background
- The Pro-Globalization Coalition
- China: Globalization's Driving Force
- The Anti-Globalizers
- Technology: Making Globalization Redundant
- The Consistency of Both Sides
- Latin America's Route Map
Readership: Business professionals, researchers, undergraduate and graduate students interested in knowing more about Latin America and Latin American Economic Growth; business and trade federations; institutes or centers for Latin American studies in universities.
"In my many years of interaction with Ambassador Toro Hardy, I truly believe that he is a person with a 'three-on-one' quality: a professional diplomat with a wide international experience, a scholar with profound knowledge, and a public intellectual extraordinarily sensitive to current world developments. A book like this one can only be written by a person with these qualities. Compared to other books on globalization, Hardy's approach goes much further. Everyone who is concerned with his/her future in the age we live in, will find this book extremely useful and helpful."
Zheng Yongnian
Director, East Asian Institute
National University of Singapore
"In a time of extraordinary transformation and exponential acceleration we need to reframe our way to see planet Earth. Alfredo Toro Hardy has the gift to analyze highly complex issues and present amazing new ideas in a simple way. His unique experience, traveling around the world and meeting personally some of the leading figures of our time, allows him to search for a path between the higher risks and the larger opportunities, which is what makes this book so worth reading."
Michel Saloff Coste
Foresight Research Director
Lille Catholic University and
Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies Associate
"Few people, if any, are better placed than Alfredo Toro Hardy to chart an uncertain world in which Latin America, like other parts of the world, is bracing itself for an unpredictable future. This sweeping study, rooted in Hardy's expansive academic knowledge and experience across continents, is required reading not only for those interested in Latin America but for anyone curious about the emergence of a new world order in the making."
James M Dorsey
Two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee and Senior Fellow
S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Nanyang Technological University
"In a brilliant continuation of a long record of seminal publications, Alfredo Toro Hardy gets into the most intriguing future development of the world economy. This comprehensive analysis is worthwhile to read not only for experts and students but also for the wider audience. The author's academic view, reinforced by a rich and long standing diplomatic career, makes this book a basic reading that stimulates further research."
Carlos Camacho Gaos
Dean, Faculty of Global Studies
Anahuac University Mexico
"Hardy provides a lucid analysis of the economic and political crosscurrents over the last century. He takes a subject made complex by pundits and demystifies the turbulent world we see today. A must read for those concerned about where we have come from and where we are headed!"
Gerald Ross
Former Dean, McGill University's Faculty of Management
CEO Rubicon Intelligence Unit
"Alfredo Toro Hardy offers us the benefits of his training. The author of this book deserves significant attention: After a long and successful career as a top diplomat and a global scholar, he is exploiting his deep knowledge and the experience acquired over a life of work to tackle some of the most pressing issues of our time."
Klaus F Zimmermann
President of the Global Labor Organization
Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Population Economics and
Past-President of the German Institute for Economic Research
Alfredo Toro Hardy is a Venezuelan retired diplomat, scholar and author. He graduated in Law from the Central University of Venezuela with master degrees from the universities of Pennsylvania and the Central University of Venezuela, postgraduate degrees from the University of Paris II and the Ecole Nationale d'Administration, ENA, and a course on international negotiations from Harvard University.
He was one of his country's most senior career diplomats, having served as Ambassador to Washington, London, Madrid, Brasilia, Singapore, Santiago de Chile and Dublin.
As scholar, he was Director of the Pedro Gual Diplomatic Academy of the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Associate Professor at the Simón Bolívar University in Caracas, where he was Director of the Center for North American Studies and Co-ordinator of the Institute for Higher Latin American Studies. He was elected as "Simón Bolívar Chair Professor for Latin American Studies" by the Council of Faculties of the University of Cambridge, but had to decline election due to diplomatic constrains. A Visiting Professor at Princeton University, he also taught at the universities of Brasilia and Barcelona, while lecturing extensively at universities and think tanks from the Americas, Europe and Asia. He has been a member of the Advising Committee of the Diplomatic Academy of London, a Fulbright Scholar and a two times Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Resident Scholar. He has also been a member of the Bellagio Center Nominations Committee.
Author of nineteen previous books and co-author of thirteen more on international affairs and history. He received twice the "Latino Book Award" (best book by an author whose original language is in Spanish or Portuguese) at the ExpoBook America fairs celebrated in Chicago and Los Angeles in 2003 and 2008, respectively. His two previous books were published by World Scientific: The World Turned Upside Down: The Complex Partnership between China and Latin America (2013) and Understanding Latin America: A Decoding Guide (2017). The on-line cataloguing LibraryThing choose the first of them as one of the nine basic readings on South America.
He has authored thirty papers in peer reviewed journals from the Americas, Europe and Asia. He is also a weekly senior columnist at Venezuela's leading newspaper El Universal and a frequent contributor in several Latin American and Spanish written media.
A current or former member of the Global Labor Organization, the Iberian–American Network of Sinologists, Chatham House, Canning House and the Windsor Energy Group, among other similar institutions.
