The Naked Diplomat: Understanding Power and Politics in the Digital Age

by Tom Fletcher

Previously published as Naked Diplomacy.

Who will be in power in the 21st century? Governments? Big business? Internet titans? And how do we influence the future?

Digital technology is changing power at a faster rate than any time in history. Distrust is fuelling political uncertainty; inequality is fuelling economic uncertainty; and massive technological change is fuelling existential uncertainty. The scaffolding built around the 20th century global order is fragile, and the checks and balances created over centuries to protect liberty are being tested, maybe to destruction. Tom Fletcher, the youngest senior British ambassador for 200 years, considers how we - as governments, businesses, individuals - can survive and thrive in the 21st century. And how we can ensure that technology helps us create opportunity, improve security, outsmart the extremists, and make it easier for citizens to truly take back control.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Political Science, Society, Technology

336 pages, Paperback

First published June 2, 2016

About the author

Tom Fletcher CMG is a Visiting Professor of International Relations at New York University, and Senior Advisor to the Director General at the Emirates Diplomatic Academy. He was British Ambassador to Lebanon (2011-15), and the Downing Street foreign policy adviser to three Prime Ministers, (2007-11). He is an Honorary Fellow of Oxford University, and the Global Strategy Director for the Global Business Coalition for Education, which seeks to harness private sector efforts to get 59 million children into school. He blogs as the Naked Diplomat, and chairs the International Advisory Council of the Creative Industries Federation, promoting Britain's most dynamic and magnetic sector overseas. Tom has recently led a review of British diplomacy for the UK Foreign Office, and is currently working on a report on the future of the United Nations for the next UN Secretary General. Tom is married to Dr Louise Fletcher, a psychologist, and they have two sons.