inside cover
Sad to note, but no beautiful 2-page map inside the front cover like last time. Wouldn't have wanted the full-up presentation of crisis response data, but the map would have been cool to repeat. Obviously, a cost issue, though. Compromise comes later in front matter.
Abbreviated Title page:
"Blueprint for Action" is awfully generic title, as any Google search will find you such "blueprints" across the dial. But I am glad the Penguin's marketers put their foot down and forced us not to include PNM at the front of the main title (fearing confusion in the marketplace). So it's a rather bald title, but the sub-title is the one I've always wanted (and was denied on PNM by Neil Nyren at Putnam), so I'm pretty happy to have it here now. Yes, the work springs from PNM, but no Pentagon or "war" in the title, because that's not what the blueprint is all about.
"Also by …" page:
First iteration had only PNM listed, but I asked Putnam to put my first book on this, published roughly a dozen years ago. It sits, quite dutifully, at around a 2.5m ranking on Amazon: Romanian and East German Policies in the Third World. So BFA is really my third published book, in addition to being a sequel or Vol. II to PNM. Right now I have at least four other books I want to write or be a part of: 1) Vol. III in the PNM series, which would be individual-level focused (PNM was system, BFA was national); 2) the "Emily Updates" memoir of my family's battle with our firstborn's cancer (where the character of the "grand strategist" was born, so it's my prequel or "Hobbit" to the PNM's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy); 3) the biz-focused enterprise resilience book with Steve DeAngelis (or maybe just in support of Steve since it's really his story to tell on content); and 4) the "greatest hits" enterprise resilience management book that Steve and I write based on our adventures together. In terms of sequence, I see it as #3, #1, #2 and then #4-all within the next 3-4 years.
Main title page:
I like the subtle framing effect, and it's cool to finally see those words "A Future Worth Creating" in print. I had sought trademark protection for the phrase but then dropped the bid. I don't need it here for publication, and I don't plan to use the phrase as a business logo or slogan, since the New Rule Sets Project LLC was swallowed up by Enterra Solutions. Always cool to be associated with G.P. Putnam's Sons (New York), because they are the King Kong of bestsellers.
Copyright page:
Putnam's been around since 1838!
Being part of the Penguin Group really gets you basically the English-speaking world, which is why--along with the rise of Amazon, or online booksellin--you don't really sell foreign rights in those countries. So far, PNM has sold to Japan, China, Turkey and Greece. BFA has sold only to Turkey so far, but I'm hoping to repeat all the rest.
The copyright belongs to me, and the two-globes illustration is copyrighted still to William McNulty, at that time the mapmaker of the New York Times, he has since moved on. I have since bought the rights to the map and two-globes image for all publication and other media uses.
Published simultaneously in Canada means, like last time, we sold just the North American rights to Putnam.
Library of Congress locates the book in: "1. United States--foreign relations--2001-- 2.Security, International--Forecasting. 3. Globalization. 4. United States--Military policy. 5. World politics--1989-
Same book design as with PNM, done by Lovedog Studio. Really like that.
Then that weird disclaimer about any URLs listed in footnotes (can't control the web!).
Dedication page:
To Vonne Mary
For connecting me to a new past, present, and future
And to Emily Vonne, Kevin Clifford, Jerome Edward, and Vonne Mei Ling
Ya vas lyubil tak iskrenno, tak nezhno
Kak dai vam Bog lyubimoi byt' drugim
A.S. Pushkin (1829)
Vonne Mary is my wife (first and middle). The line refers to her efforts to link our marriage and family to China through the adoption of our fourth child, Vonne Mei Ling. To me, it feels like we've adopted a new past, definitely had our presently reordered, and most inevitably will travel done a new future path. And I'm grateful to Vonne for exposing me and involving me in all this change and challenge. It's that aspect of her spirit that's always attracted me the most.
Then our four children's names in order of age.
The Pushkin quote comes from my favorite poem of his (whose actual name escapes me now and if all our stuff wasn't in storage I'd simply pull the volume off the shelf and type it in right now! I translated the poem in 3rd year Russian at Wisconsin in 1983, and I remember being so amazed at the beauty of the statement, that I memorized the line right there (I can still do it on command). I later used it as a toast at my older sister Cathie's wedding, and then used it again as the dedication to Vonne in my first book. I like resurrecting it here.
The translation is best rendered (IMHO) as: "I love you so dearly, so tenderly, that I wish God would grant others to love you so."
It strikes me as the sort of perfect wish for one's children, and since BFA is all about the future, I thought it made good sense to use it again here. Pushkin is for the ages. He's Russia's great poet and, in many ways, the father of their written language. Only one who compares, in my mind, is Lermontov.
Contents pages:
I really like the all-caps look here in the main chapters, with the bullets to divide the sections.
The ordering was a big question for us (Mark Warren and I). Our original plan was to have a "Chapter Zero" that would project ahead to the year 2025. I actually wrote that first and, after much discussion with Mark and proxy reader (brother-in-law) Steve Meussling, Mark decided that Chapter Zero ("Blogging the Future") made more sense as a thrilling wrap-up Afterword than as a foreword of sorts (Steve just found it too confusing up front, as much as he liked it).
Second big decision was to put the Glossary behind the Preface. Let me make my sale to the reader right up front, and then, if he or she is a first-timer, we given them the Glossary right on the Preface's heels. So I get you all jacked up with the Preface, you spend a few minutes getting prepped with the Glossary, and we're good to go.
Chapter 1's titles all stayed the same from start to finish, although Warren put my name at the head of the third section ("Barnett's A-to-Z Rule Set on Processing Politically Bankrupt States"). He wanted me to really own that section because it's probably the most important in the book, and it's really mine. So we decided to claim it that explicitly.
And yes, the first chapter's title does come from the Burt Bacharach song . . .
Chapter 1 ("What the World Needs Now") is designed as bottom-up in progression: from military ("Understanding the Seam Between War and Peace") to state ("A Department For What Lies Between War and Peace") to system (the A-to-Z).
Chapter 2 ("Winning the War Through Connectedness") is the only chapter where we cut a section, thus it is the only one without a triplet of sections. What we cut was the first individual-level section that dissected the postwar occupation of Iraq. Too much of that material snuck into Chapter 1, so it just didn't serve well as a stand-alone, because it was too repetitive. We made sure we grabbed all the best bits and stuffed them into Chapter 1, so no real loss. What remains are the nation-level ("Connecting the Middle East to the World") and system-level ("Creating the New Rule Set on Global Terrorism") arguments for the Global War on Terrorism, making Chaptere 2 another bottom-up progression.
Chapter 3 ("Growing the Core by Securing the East") is my favorite in the book. Easiest to write and what I'm most proud about. It's another bottom-up progression from internal China ("Locking In China at Today's Prices") to New Core states ("In the Future, America's Most Important Allies Will be New Core States") to a system-level argument on speed ("The Train's Engine Can Travel No Faster Than Its Caboose"). The second section is the only one where I went back and forth on competing titles: I almost called it, "The New Core Sets the New Rules," but in the end we chose to stick with the more explicit, "In the Future …." I like that "in the future" construction, which I lifted from a David Byrne song in the "Music for the Knee Plays" album (1985) he did for a series of dances that Robert Wilson put on interludes between the longer scenes of his epic theatrical event, "Civil Wars."
To me the third section of Chapter 3 ("The Train's Engine Can Travel No Faster Than Its Caboose") is the pivot of the book. In the first seven sections (three in Chapter 1, two in Chapter 2, and first two in Chapter 3) it's really bang-bang on big blueprint proposals (my "magnificent seven"). From that point on in the book it gets more narrative-focus, or a grand exploration of what it will take to shrink the Gap (less directive, more admonition and guidance).
Chapter 4 ("Shrinking the Gap by Ending Disconnectedness") is the opposite of Chapter 3: not growing the Core by shrinking the Gap. That was the toughest chapter to write, but it's essential to the storyline, in my mind. Mark did a lot of work here, cutting quite a bit from the second section ("Tipping Points in the Journey From the Gap to the Core"). This is the only chapter in the book that goes top-down in progression: regional sequencing scenarios ("The Coming Choices") to descriptions of national journeys ("Tipping Points …") to individual-level realities ("Essential Building Blocks for Shrinking the Gap From Within").
Chapter 5 ("We Have Met the Enemy") is the equivalent of the myth-busting chapter (7) in PNM: an attempt to deal with logical criticisms. More than any other chapter in the series to date, this one is an exploration of great books (Huntington, Fukuyama, DeSoto, Wolf, Lomborg, Wright et. al). I know the academic route is to start all books with this sort of material, but it took me this far into Vol. II to reach the need. I enjoyed writing this chapter greatly. It was also-by far-the easiest one to write. The three great criticisms dealt with are: 1) "it'll take too long!" ("The Resumption of History and the Latest Enemy"-obviously a play on Fukuyama's title, "The End of History and the Last Man"); 2) "who are we to impose our morals?" ("The Convergence of Civilizations"-obviously a play on Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations"); and 3) "you'll destroy the planet if you succeed!" ("A World Made One . . . Or Just Nonzero"-obviously building off Robert Wright's book, "Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny").
The Conclusion ("Heroes Yet Discovered"-made that one up all by myself 8<)) is, IMHO, a very cool alternative to the usual project-ahead sort of conclusion that books like this one typically employ. To me, that just would have seemed repetitive, so I wanted to drill down to something far more individual, making my case more directly to the next generation. This idea was included in the original book proposal, and it came out just like I had planned. It was easy and a lot of fun to write, because I was able to draw upon years of scenario work. I divide the 42 characters sketches by region.
The Afterword ("Blogging the Future") is pure scenarioizing, and it's a lot of fun, much like my "ten steps to a future worth creating" that ended PNM. Thirty-six "headlines from the future" with blogged analysis attached, spread over a series of timeline posts (by 2010, by 2015, by 2020 and by 2025). They are front-loaded, meaning more early one than later on. A bit of repetition from the main text, but okay since this is an afterword. I honestly believe it's a neat stand-along text. It was meant to be thrilling and I think it accomplished that.
Then the Acknowledgments (I didn't go overboard at only 3 pages), 61 pages of notes (and no, I plan on never counting the endnotes, much less all the references), and 12 pages of Index.
Book clocks in at 440, a whopping 8 pages shorter (if I remember correctly) from PNM. I told Neil Nyren I'd write a shorter book this time and damn it! I kept my promise!
Preface: A Future Worth Creating:
Like last time, Mark Warren, my editor and writing coach, had me wait until we were done with the main text before I wrote the preface (gotta write the book before you can tell how to introduce it, right?). Well, since I am someone who thinks as he writes and speaks, this approach made perfect sense-again. Plus, you want the preface to sing, so better to write it after the main text because you'll be so amazingly warm on the subject by that time.
This baby hums at just under four pages. Unlike last time, when I clocked it with something like 6k and Neil Nyren had us cut it down by more than half, this time I started small and the cutting by Neil (who puts a lot of effort into prefaces) was far smaller (just getting rid of the messianic stuff, as he put it).
This preface is fairly straightforward: remind the reader of PNM, make the bridging arguments to the second Vol. II, and give a brief description of what you think you'll accomplish in the piece. As Neil wanted, it signals both the towering ambition of the book and its focus on real-world accomplished to be achieved in coming years. No pie in the sky, and "no flying cars," as Neil admonished. The book was not about to become some fanciful leap to a future few of us will live to see. No, if the first book's center of gravity extended from 1973 right up to 2004, with the bulk of the content back-loaded to the most recent years, BFA was going to pivot in the opposite direction: stretching from 2005 to 2025 but frontloading the tasks to be achieved, not leaving them vaguely stated for future generations.
I got one last swing at the preface on the day Mark and I turned in our mega list of corrections: 4 July 2005. A very nice day and a very nice way to sign off on a future worth creating.
Glossary of Key Terms From The Pentagon's New Map:
The glossary will look familiar to anyone who subscribes to the (now called) TPMB Newsletter; it's basically the same one we place at the end of each issue. The origins of this glossary are located in Putnam's PR effort on the first book, specifically in the yeoman's effort put in by Steve Oppenheim, who really is a wiz at this stuff in addition to being a really nice guy and good friend to me. Steve is a masterful writer and compiler in his own right, and he built this glossary pulling text directly out of PNM. Steve did this for the PR package that went out with PNM, and I think it really worked wonders with a lot of interviews and appearances.
When we started newsletter, we basically used the same glossary, which had been sitting on my site for a while. I've expanded the list somewhat from Steve's original, and we didn't keep all of his entries for the glossary in BFA, because some concepts just didn't make the journey. But Steve Oppenheim really gets the lion's share credit for this 5-page section. I did all the original writing, but Steve's selections and editing were really exceptional. I remain greatly in his debt for this highly professional effort.
* * *
Well, that's it for the front matter. Despite no big beautiful map, I like this collection of materials even more than what we put forth in PNM. To me, this is a book, and a production team, that is hitting on all cylinders--and it shows.
