Stefan Hell

A new and coherent framework for fostering the breakthrough innovations that we urgently need to confront our collective future. We live in less innovative times than we think. Despite having made major technological advancements in a few areas, we are still left with enormous unsolved challenges. A radical shift in the culture of innovation is needed. On the Brink of Utopia, by authors Thomas Ramge and Rafael Laguna de la Vera, and with a foreword written by Nobel Laureate Stefan Hell, offers just that—a new and coherent framework for fostering breakthrough innovations for human progress. In their “Innovation Leap Paradigm,” they present seven steps in seven chapters and answer three simple questions: What great challenges need to be tackled? Who makes tech leaps? And finally, what political, economic, and cultural environments foster radical innovation? The authors sketch out a future in which technology will solve real problems, anywhere from climate change and hunger to obesity and menstrual pain. They envision a future in which biotechnologists work from a platform that enables them to develop effective drugs within months for any emerging virus, where green energy will be too cheap to meter and aerial carbon can be transmuted into a valuable commodity at scale. Offering a new perspective on innovation that centers not just American readers but also readers from all over the world, On the Brink of Utopia is a hopeful and visionary book that reimagines the roles of innovators, citizens, governments, and financial markets to foster innovation leaps that maximize the well-being of the greatest number of people.

100 years ago Siam declared war on Germany. In the early morning hours of 22 July 1917, army units and gendarmerie called the roughly 200 completely unsuspecting German and Austro-Hungarian men in Bangkok out of their beds, presented them with the declaration of war and went on to arrest them. At the same time, marine units boarded the nine ocean going German ships anchored on the river, capturing what was considered by all to be the greatest prize. With these events began Siam's 17 months at war with two European powers. The story of how these 17 months unfolded in Siam and in Europe is at the heart of this book. It is a complex tale interweaving political, diplomatic, military, cultural and social history. The book introduces adventurous and scared Thai soldiers on the battlefields of the Western Front, arrogant European politicians and diplomats convinced of their racial and cultural superiority, shrewd Thai officials beating the West at its own game of imperialism, princes rivalling over influence and power, German businessmen imprisoned by "Orientals", Thai students caught up in world events and submarine attacks, and the King of Siam himself. Siam's participation in World War I was the single most important international event for contemporaries in the kingdom, its symbolism unmatched by any other occurrence of the times. The book is the first-ever extensively researched study of Siam and World War I in all its facets. By combining primary sources from Thailand, Germany, France, Great Britain, and Austria, the study describes local events in a global context and explains how world events manifested themselves in the royal palaces and on the streets of Bangkok. The legacy of the events a century ago is remarkably tangible even today, and the book connects the reader with this legacy. The book is easily accessible to the non-specialist reader interested in history and political affairs, as it describes numerous colorful episodes and vignettes, and includes over 300 rare photographs and illustrations, reproduced in high-quality print. The book is published simultaneously in a Thai and an English-language version.

This first in-depth study of Thai foreign relations in well over a decade traces how these and other policy areas brought Siam in contact with the League of Nations, after the kingdom had signed the Treaty of Versailles and became an original member of this first global body. Based on never before consulted primary sources in Thailand and Europe, the study unfolds the story of a unique relationship between the only independent country in Southeast Asia and the League during the inter-war period 1920-1940. The book highlights both the importance of the League for the modernisation of Siam and the shaping of its foreign policies, as well as the intriguing role Siam played on the world stage in the early development of the multilateral political system we live in today.