Economies are complex beasts that need people to do an extraordinary range of tasks.

The biggest barrier to dealing with climate change is us: our own attachment to habits that are hard to shift, and our great ability to park or ignore uncomfortable choices.

Systems governed by only one set of rules are more vulnerable than those with variety.

Governments that invest billions in new hardware still find it hard to accept that they might benefit just as much from systematic innovation in such things as child development or cutting crime.

A lot of people in government don't really read books at all.

All of nationalism can be understood as a kind of collective narcissism.

The once-science-fiction notion of hyper-connectivity - where we are all constantly connected to social networks and other bubbling streams of digital data - has rapidly become a widespread reality.