Christopher Kutarna

Politics expert Chris Kutarna – who publicly predicted Brexit – talks about the risks and rewards of a new Renaissance that is transforming our modern world.

Kutarna says the present is a contest between the bright and dark sides of discovery. Now is the best moment in history to be alive, but we have never felt more anxious or divided. Human health, education and science are flourishing. But the same global flows that make gains possible for some people deliver big losses to others―and make us all more vulnerable to one another.

Kutarna and his co-author Professor Ian Goldin, director of the Oxford Martin School and former vice-president of the World Bank, argue that to make sense of present shocks, we need to step back and recognise: we’ve been here before. The first Renaissance, the time of Columbus, Copernicus, Gutenberg and others, likewise redrew maps of the world, democratised communication and sparked a flourishing of creative achievement. But their world also grappled with the same dark side of rapid change: social division, political extremism, insecurity, pandemics and other unintended consequences of discovery.

Kutarna is a fellow at the Oxford Martin School and holds a doctorate in politics from the University of Oxford.