Political Scientist Ian Bremmer Speaks on ‘The Power of Crisis’ at Santa Barbara’s Granada Theatre

If the problems of climate change, global pandemics, and the influx of artificial intelligence feel daunting, UCSB Arts and Lectures’ presentation “An Evening with Global Political Risk Expert Ian Bremmer” might just be the perfect cure. 

On Thursday, November 10, at 7:30 p.m. at The Granada Theatre, Bremmer will discuss his latest book, The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats — and Our Response — Will Change the World. Throughout the evening, he will be the public’s “guide” through navigating the three major global crises of climate change, pandemics, and the rise of artificial intelligence and social media.

Bremmer is perhaps best described as a global political risk expert, and within this notion his career is versatile and widespread. Bremmer is the president and founder of Eurasia Group, the foreign affairs columnist and editor-at-large for Time magazine, the host of the television program GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, and the author of 11 books, and he also teaches at Columbia University. In addition, Bremmer appears at global events such as Davos’ World Economic Forum and delivers the annual speech, “The State of the World.”

Despite the critical title, The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats — and Our Response — Will Change the World is likely Bremmer’s most optimistic work so far. Although the book acknowledges three major crises in the modern world, it focuses primarily on the power of overcoming them, and the ways in which global collaboration in the face of such challenges truly can change the world — hence the title.

Bremmer profoundly argues in his book that crises on the global scale can ease polarization and division in disparate populations, as a shared external threat becoming a uniting factor. While the three crises he writes about are life-threatening, Bremmer believes that the power of unification and resiliency through them can produce a stronger and more united world.