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Sceptre will publish “an optimistic vision of the future after Covid-19", Rescue: From Global Crisis to a Better World, by leading professor of globalisation, Ian Goldin of Oxford University.
Juliet Brooke, associate publisher at Sceptre, acquired world rights from Karolina Sutton at Curtis Brown. Sceptre will publish Rescue in hardback, audiobook and e-book formats on 13th May 2021.
The book has been praised by former prime minister Gordon Brown, co-founder of the Huffington Post Arianna Huffington and director of LSE Baroness Minouche Shafik among others. Its blurb reads: “We are at a crossroads. The wrecking-ball of Covid-19 has destroyed global norms. Many think that after the devastation there will be a bounce back, but this is a retrograde notion. It is business as usual that led to the pandemic and will lead to a dystopian future.
“This crisis can create opportunities for change, just as the Second World War forged the ideas behind the creation of the welfare state, United Nations and new international institutions that laid the foundations for a host of social and economic reforms, changing the world for the better.”
Sceptre said: “Ian Goldin tackles the challenges and opportunities posed by the pandemic, ranging from globalisation to the future of jobs, income inequality and geopolitics, the climate crisis and the future of cities. Rescue provides an urgently needed roadmap that reveals how the pandemic could lead to a better world. It is a fresh, bold call for an optimistic future, one we all have the power to create.”
Brooke said: “We’re living through unprecedented times. Not only has there been tragedy on a global scale, but we have also seen governments, businesses and individuals challenge the norms of 21st-century capitalism in ways that might have seemed unimaginable beforehand. Ian’s brilliant book is the necessary handbook for this new conversation. It’s a guide for a more hopeful future where real change is genuinely possible.”
Goldin is professor of globalisation and development at the University of Oxford and leads the Oxford Martin Programmes on the future of work, technological and economic change and the future of development. Prior to becoming the founding director of the Oxford Martin School, he was vice-president of the World Bank, after serving as c.e.o. of the Development Bank of Southern Africa and as an advisor to President Nelson Mandela.
He said: “The pandemic has created a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a better world and prevent a downward spiral of rising risk, a retreat into nationalism and an increasingly divided and dangerous world. In previous books I showed why the failure to manage globalisation would inevitably lead to a pandemic, economic crises and escalating climate change. In Rescue, I show how Covid-19 has accelerated changes in all aspects of our societies, forcing us to think afresh and make choices which will impact on our lives and those of others for generations to come. The time has come to rescue our world from a dystopian future. This book shows how the pandemic has made this possible.”