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World politics has changed, claims Bruno Macaes. Geopolitics is no longer simply a contest to control territory: in this age of advanced technology, it has become a contest to create the territory. Great powers seek to build a world for other states to inhabit, while keeping the ability to change the rules or the state of the world when necessary. At a moment when the old concepts no longer work, this book aims to introduce a radically new theory of world politics and technology. Understood as 'world building', the most important events of our troubled times suddenly appear connected and their inner logic is revealed: technology wars between China and the United States, the pandemic, the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the energy transition. To conclude, Macaes considers the more distant future, when the metaverse and artificial intelligence become the world, a world the great powers must struggle to build and control.
List of contents
Prologue: World Building; Introduction: The New Geopolitics; 1. 2018; 2. 2020; 3. 2022; 4. 2024; To Conclude ....
Report
'The control of physical territory defined international relations for centuries. But in our increasingly technopolar age, it's the power to create new spaces - virtual, economic, even physical - that matters most. Bruno Maçães brilliantly captures this shift in World Builders, showing how the ability to build and control the technological infrastructure underpinning the very arenas in which states compete for supremacy has become the defining feature of contemporary geopolitics. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the forces driving global power in the 21st century.' Ian Bremmer, founder of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media
